The House Committee on Foreign Affairs approved Thursday (August 20) its panel report on the bill which allows senior citizens to renew their passport without physically going to a consular office.  The bill also grants them a 32-percent discount on all passport issuance or renewal fees. 

After less than two hours of virtual deliberations, the House panel, chaired by Zamboanga Sibugay 2nd District Rep. Ann Hofer passed its committee report on the substitute measure seeking to amend the Philippine Passport Act of 1996. 

Negros Occidental 4th District Rep. Juliet Marie Ferrer moved for its approval.  Ferrer’s motion was seconded by Camiguin lone District Rep. Xavier Jesus Romualdo. 

The committee report will then be referred to the House Committee on Appropriations for its deliberation and approval, Hofer said. 

Before the approval of the panel report, the Hofer panel passed the amendments proposed by La Union 2nd District Rep. Sandra Eriguel and Cagayan de Oro 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez “in honor” of the late Senior Citizens partylist Rep. Francisco “Jun” Datol Jr., who pushed for lifetime passport validity for the elderly. 

On August 10, Datol died due to complications brought about by COVID-19, 

Eriguel, one of the principal authors of the bill, said senior citizens should "be afforded with special privilege of renewing their passport without the need of personal appearance."

"It will be an expression of the government’s heartfelt support in gratitude for their contributions to the nation,” she said, quoting  Datol, whom she described as a “champion of senior citizens.”

She made the proposal after the panel deleted Section 6 of the substitute measure, which grants lifetime validity of the Philippine passports issued to senior citizens. Eriguel and Datol are both proponents of the measure granting lifetime passport validity to the elderly. 

“In view of the deletion of Section 6, may I request that in the IRR that our senior citizens will be given some leeway in renewing their passports particularly allowing them to renew their passport without need of personal appearance,” Eriguel said. 

Citing the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Neil Frank Ferrer relayed  to the panel that the issuance of lifetime  validity passports or assigning permanent passport numbers to specific persons "will not be compliant with ICAO specifications."

“Under existing ICAO regulations, passport validity is not to exceed 10 years and therefore, your Honor, the Department does not recommend the issuance of passports with lifetime validity to senior citizens or to assign permanent passport numbers to individuals,” he explained.

Rodriguez threw his support to Eriguel’s proposal,which he said,  should be included in the proposed Act and not in the IRR. 

“Not only in the IRR, because in the IRR that is beyond us, it is an executive function, it should be in the law . There will be no more physical appearance but there can be online interview, because right now everything is online,” he said.

“They should put up a system online for all seniors. They should have their own procedure for online interview so that the seniors will not have to go and line up there at the office,” he said.

He also asked his colleagues to lower the cost of the passport fees by granting a 32-percent discount to the senior citizens.

“This can financially help if we are able to lower issuance and the renewal of the ,” Rodriguez said. 

When asked to comment on the proposed 32-percent discount on passport fees, Ferrer said the DFA has “no objection.”

The Hofer panel also approved Rodriguez’s proposal to include the Philippine map and an inset on Sabah on the last page of the Philippine passport.

"I have here my passport. I move that in our passport, the last page instead of the turtle there, we will have the map of the Philippine that includes the exclusive economic zone, which is 200 miles from the baselines of the Philippines, and then an inset on Sabah,” Rodriguez said. 

The House leader said the passport has all the regions, but it does not have the map of the Philippines. 

“We should have that to insist on our rights as we have won in the UNCLOS,  in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas, There will be a map. Our passport includes the map of the Philippines, together with its baselines, together its with exclusive economic zones, and together with Sabah,” he said.

Apart from simplifying the requirements for the issuance of passport, the substitute measure also seeks to support the increase in the passport revolving fund of the DFA, which will be used for the improvement of the DFA’s passport issuance and other consular services.

“The substitute bill addresses the need to update the provision of the existing Passport Act with the passage of measures affecting passport applications such as Citizen and Re-acquisition Act of 2003 and the Domestic Adoption Act of 1998. It also reflects the strict compliance to the international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO),” she said. 

“Further, it seeks to ensure the integrity of passports being superior to all other official documents by adding more passpport-related offenses and providing stricter penalties for their commission,” she added.