The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) have formally announced that Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW), senior citizen and person with disability do not need to set an appointment when getting their passports.
“Angmga OFW walangkailangang appointment,” says DFA Assistant Secretary Frank Cimafranca.
According to Cimafranca, as long as the applicant could present the necessary documents to get a passport, they could apply as walk-in in the priority lane at the DFA office nationwide.
The following can avail the priority lane:
- Senior citizens who can present a senior citizen ID
- Person with disability who can present a PWD ID or have a visible disability
- Solo Parent who can present a valid Solo Parent ID
- Pregnant women who can present a medical certificate
- Minors who are seven years old and below
“They can just come to any of our office, walk-in and apply,” says Cimafranca.
He also added that this reminder is visible in their website.
Cimafranca also noted that they are finding ways to facilitate those who are looking work abroad when getting their passport.
“We are also trying to accommodate them by creating a portal. This portal can be used by a recruitment agency. They will have to go through a special portal para mabilissila,” says Cimafranca.
This new innovation is set to be launched this week.
Passport Appointment
Moreover, the Facebook page of DFA is currently dealing with the complaints from all those applicants who failed to set their passport appointment on their website.
According to others, there are no available appointments for three months. Others even blamed those fixers and travel agencies for the delay of their appointment setting.
“We can hardly cope with the demand for passports, that’s why we are trying to address this by trying to increase our capacity,” says Cimafranca.
Approximately, there are 12,000 to 15,000 passport applicants every day.
“We have only an ideal number that we can process daily,” says Cimafranca.
It was on September 2017 when DFA issued a press release regarding the return of passport appointment slots for the public.
According to the press release, the DFA already removed the reserved 1,200 fixed appointment slots every day for passport application and renewal of applicants from travel agencies.
Those slots were given back to regular applicants. The said regulation was implemented last August 1, 2017, according to ABS-CBN News.
