Passport on Wheels to roll out in Davao
By Yas D. Ocampo
Davao City – The City Government is aiming to fill out the allotted 4,000 slots by the Department of Foreign Affairs, whose Passport on Wheels van will make a scheduled stop next week in the city.
This as hundreds of passport applicants flocked to the Davao City Recreation Center (DCRC, formerly Almendras Gym) starting Wednesday following an announcement of an opening of the highly sought-after slots for passport applications.
The gym has been accommodating the hundreds of applicants since Wednesday.
Sharon Cuenca, a staff at the City Administrator’s Office, said that there have been 1,700 applicants as of Wednesday.
Officials estimated that around 2,000 applications can be accommodated per day, with no figures available yet on the number of qualified applicants for the second day as of this writing.
Hundreds of other applications are still being processed a day after the city extended the original date of processing to another day.
The city government originally scheduled the initial passport processing to just one day.
However, the influx of applicants made the city decide to have another day for processing.
The city’s allotment of 4,000 slots was granted under the passport on wheels program, following complaints that the slots at the DFA office here were hard to come by.
Applicants wishing to travel abroad have to wait for open slots for months, even if they try to apply through the online booking system of the DFA.
Passport applicants should bring proof of their Philippine citizenship, voter’s IDs, driver’s license, among other government-issued IDs, as well as supporting documents.
They will also be asked to fill out a form on site.
The passport on wheels van will arrive in the city for two days next week, but will not allow walk-in applications.
