DFA opens additional appointment slots for passport application, renewal

The Department of Foreign Affairs on Thursday announced its opening of thousands of appointment slots for passport application and renewal.

In a press release, Assistant Secretary Frank Cimafranca of the Office of Consular Affairs said the slots for September appointment will be opened on August 25.

“The goal is to serve as many people as we can efficiently and effectively, so those slots had to be cleaned up. And that’s what we did,” Cimafranca said.

Cimafranca cited that an additional 94,350 slots were opened from July to August.

He added that out of the slots opened last month, 62,450 additional slots were made available after the DFA increased the consular offices’ appointment quotas.

The remaining 31,900 came from the cleaning up of bogus appointments created by unscrupulous individuals, Cimafranca said.

Cimafranca pointed out that the increase in slots has been complemented by an increase in personnel in charge of processing documents.

This increase led to the moving up to earlier dates of about 900 appointments and has resulted in the reduction of suspended applications from 33,000 on August 2 to zero on August 18.

The DFA official also reminded the public that appointment slots are free. —Anna Felicia Bajo/KG, GMA News