“TRY AGAIN TOMORROW.”
Having a hard time looking for a passport appointment with the Department of Foreign Affairs? DFA advises, “Try again tomorrow.”
Applying for a passport has never been this difficult lately as despite of thousands of slots being opened by DFA to applicants, finding a slot remained a big problem.
In GMA 7’s news report via 24 Oras on Thursday, getting an appointment was quite hard for many applicants. The acting director of DFA’s Passport Division sees there is a very, very high demand for appointment slots.
According to Ricarte Abejuela III, “Right now, it’s a matter of supply versus demand, so to speak. Currently, the demand is very, very high and the supply, we’re still trying to catch up with the demand.”
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In fact, among 40,000 people who are trying to book for a slot each day, only 12,000 of them are being accommodated.
DFA then advises, “If you can’t find it today, then we encourage you to try again tomorrow because we open slots on a daily basis.”
“We open slots gradually, hindi isang buhos.”
Some of the applicants who were interviewed during the report claimed they were able to get the slot by accessing the DFA’s online booking at wee hours of the morning while some of them had patiently tried their luck for several times until they got a slot a few months before.
Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano had previously promised a faster and efficient procedure on passport application by June of this year, eyeing possible developments in their facilities and equipment.
Applicants can pay their passport in advance thru DFA’s electronic payment facility or the Passport ePayment on their Online Appointment System.
