E- Passports for Philippine Nationals

The Philippine Consulate General issued statements in December 2010, indicating that they would issue tamper proof electronic passports or Machine readable passports only to comply with rules set by ICAO- the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure air travel safety. Conduction of biometric tests before issuing these passports is mandatory and personal appearance in the consulate is therefore inevitable. The processing time shall also increase to up to four weeks as applications are sent to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.

The Philippine mission in Los Angeles serving Southern California, Southern Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, is making persistent efforts to provide assistance to the Pinoy. To lay doubts to rest, they have issued a statement that the regular green passports are valid until they run out their expiry period.

Brief guide on the MRPs

Luchie Mendoza Allen of Balita Media explains the nuances of the MRP and electronic passports. The information in these documents can be read by computers as well as human beings. According to sources at Balita, Philippines introduced these documents to protect its people from scandals and rackets involved in tampering with personal details of the passport holder, fake passports, and other issues related to international crime and terrorism.

Added security features include electronically embedded information and holographic images on each page of the passport, each of these very difficult to reproduce, thus serving as huge deterrents to fake passport scams.

The Application procedure for these new passports is a simple affair, involving a fee of

Hong Kong $5. The only hitch is the rather long processing time for the MRP, averaging

twenty days as the requests for the new passports are approved by the consulate and

forward to Manila where the MRPs are printed and then sent back to the consulate

concerned.

In such a scenario, requests for early release of passports or urgent applications are no more entertained by the Philippines Consulates around the world. In the event of extreme emergency, the consulates have been granted power to issue the regular passport upon careful scrutiny of the case and arriving at a conclusion after much deliberation. Therefore, it is advised that an MRP be applied for at least a month in advance before one plans to travel.

All’s well that ends well

This move has sparked off panic at some levels owing to the long wait periods and a rather convoluted procedure for obtaining a Philippines Passport, but once issued, promises a quicker way of travel and completion of airport formalities.