MORE than 4 million passport applications. This is the estimated number of people who were not serviced for the past two years since the pandemic began in 2020 and the Department of Foreign Affairs is overwhelmed at the sheer volume of demand for applicants now that restrictions have been eased and many are clamoring to go out of the country to work, business, study or leisure.
“The demand exceeds the supply largely due to the pandemic. Just like any other government agencies, the DFA is constrained to limit the number of workers inside our consular buildings,” DFA Undersecretary Brigido Dulay said in an exclusive interview with the BusinessMirror.
Two years before the pandemic, the DFA processed 8.5 million passport applications, both in the Philippines and overseas.
However, due to the regulation set by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF), the DFA had to restrict the number of applicants that it can service daily. So in 2020, only 1.7 million passport applications were released; and in 2021, around 2.5 million.
During the first two years of the pandemic, the DFA opened 14 additional temporary offsite passport services (TOPS)—those passport renewal services in the malls—which can process 46,000 applications in a span of seven working days. In theory, those TOPS could have processed around 1.5 million in a year.
No-show applicants
But when the DFA made a study on the production output numbers of TOPS, it found that around 20 percent of those who applied—and paid their passport applications online—did not show up on their scheduled appointments. “So that number impacts again our bottom line of backlog applications,” he said.
When asked if these no-show applicants contracted Covid-19 or got exposed to someone who got Covid-19, the DFA undersecretary said it is possible, but they have no data. He mentioned, though, that during the Omicron wave in January 2022, of the 400 slots opened to the public, only 100 appeared at the consular offices.
To plug the holes, the DFA thought of asking its consular employees to work overtime 24/7—which the Department of Budget and Management disallowed as the government rules only allow a maximum of 30 percent of time or up to 10 hours a day. Another suggestion was to hire three times more people to work on various shifts, but the DFA has no budget for that.
DFA Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. also had thought of moving certain DFA employees from the diplomacy work to consular work “because passport is the face of the DFA to the public.”
Dulay said, “It is frustrating. We want to meet the passport demand, but auditing and hiring rules are preventing us from doing so….In the end, we’ll just do the best that we can.”
Due to the demand for passport applicants, passport “fixing” made a comeback, this time online.
Anyone who needs to apply for passports should secure an appointment first through their website: passport.gov.ph/application. But it’s almost impossible to secure an appointment, because the moment there are slots opened, the slots suddenly disappear in less than 30 minutes. So, a number of entrepreneurial people have posted passport appointment services—claiming they can secure passport slots for anyone who wishes to pay more, on top of the regular passport fee of P950 for 12 working days or P1,200 expedited fee to release for seven days. The range given by these fixers is from P2,500 to P5,000 per passport.
PNP help sought
Dulay said they have asked the help of the Philippine National Police and other government enforcement agencies to help them track down those who are selling the passport slots online. For one, they have stopped giving slots to recruitment agencies—one of which they found to be selling their slots to a Facebook ticketing reseller. They have also allowed walk-ins for special needs applicants like overseas Filipino workers, minors, solo parents, persons with disabilities, senior citizens, and those who need to travel for emergency purposes under the Courtesy Lane facility of the DFA Aseana consular headquarters, consular offices nationwide and embassies and consulates.
Compared to other government IDs which can be extended with an executive order or administrative fiat, the passport is the “only document in the Philippines that cannot be extended.”
The International Civil Aviation Organization, a specialized agency of the United Nations which sets standards on international air navigation, requires that all passports worldwide have a validity period. “We cannot implement our own rules, if we do, then the other countries will be affected as well,” Dulay explained.
Dulay believes that with the consular offices and TOPS now allowed to resume operations in full capacity at pre-pandemic levels, they can slowly cater to more applicants.
The TOPS can process 20,000 passports a day or 400,000 a month, and assuming there won’t be another hiccup to the operations like another Covid-19 wave, they can issue 4.8 million this year.
Next month, they are also targeting to open six more TOP sites in the provinces. And another “mega project” will be launched next month that hopefully can accommodate 5,000 passport applications per day.
In the meantime, if your passport has indeed expired and you need to schedule an appointment, get a popcorn, nail filer, hair spa, read a book, watch your Netflix series, while waiting for the passport application site to open slots—and yes, even during wee hours. And be ready to type as fast as you can, current passport number, credit card or debit card number at the draft notepad ready for cut-and-paste, and make sure your Internet connection is steady and quite fast as you only have a 30-minute window to finish one application. If you missed filing the application, that slot will be available again to someone waiting.