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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider DFA eyes more temporary offsite passport services

DFA eyes more temporary offsite passport services

Published Aug 11, 2022 03:48 pm

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is considering adding more Temporary Offsite Passport Services (TOPS) to accommodate more Filipinos seeking passport applications and renewals.

Amid rising demand for booking appointments, Assistant Secretary Henry Bensurto said one short term action that DFA could do to "immediately address is by loading more slots in terms of the appointment."

In fact, the DFA already added more slots up until September, he added.

To increase the number of venues for passport applications and serve people in more areas, DFA sought to have more TOPS, which needs "budgetary support from Congress."

"We have put this as well on our proposed budget and hopefully we could have more offsites," he said.

"At the same time to make sure that we were able to serve people especially in the provinces because we know and understand that the distance somehow impacts on their resources," he added.

Currently, Bensurto said DFA is processing around 20,000 Philippine passport applications daily worldwide.

He said the Office of Consular Affairs is already working on concerns from applicants who cannot rectify errors in their personal information.

In most cases, applicants who fill wrong information during their online appointments are just asked to come back because DFA personnel onsite cannot make changes.

“Last week I have made an instruction to start the simplifying these, allowing the system to make the correction on the spot based on the documents that are presented,” Bensurto said.

“The process of making that change the system will take a little time, but we’re fast-tracking that and my hope is that on the first or second week of September, these aspect of the system will already be corrected,” he added.

Related Tags

temporary offsite passport services passport application DFA Department of Foreign Affairs
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