This would mean no less than 100,000 people either applying for new passports or needing passport renewals via online appointments are assured of attention, amid plans of the Department of Foreign Affairs to outsource additional personnel to accomplish this.
At the same time, Cayetano warned “syndicates, real or imagined,” which reportedly charge, at times via Facebook, some P5,000 to P20,000 for alleged speedy passport processing.
In his speech during Tuesday’s groundbreaking here for the National Government Administrative Government Center at the proposed New Clark City, Cayetano also advised people abroad and in the country who have urgent need to travel but whose passports could not be immediately processed to just see the supervisor or manager of consular offices of the DFA.
“Those who have important travels, such as in case of death in the family or important business conference, can walk in and see the supervisor or manager of the consular offices. We have instruct- ed them to accommodate you,” he said.
“The problem (of delayed passport process- ing) was not created overnight,” he said, noting that it was only last year that Congress approved an additional P2 billion budget, on top of nine consular offices, for his agency.
He noted that the passport problem has also been caused by an “old supplier” whose bio- metric records were cor- rupted.
“This is my fi rst time to hear that not only politicians and business- men can be corrupted, but also data,” he said.
Cayetano said that his department would be adding six more passport mobile vans to the two already existing vans that now travel to various areas, each processing 2,000 passports a day.
He said that once current problems are solved, people would be able to get their pass- ports via online transactions.
“There is already an app where you can take picture of your (old) passport, take a selfie of yourself and send these to us. We will email you your passport,” he added.
Cayetano also said he could not just outsource any firm to pro- duce passports because a passport that could be readily faked by terrorists could spell big problem.
