DFA to proceed with e-passports in July

No need to worry about shortage in the supply of Philippine passports. The Department of Foreign Affairs said on Friday it can proceed with the implementation of the electronic passports to replenish the current stock that would last only up until June following the Supreme Court’s lifting of the restraining order issued by a Pasig City court. The project, which has a P1.4 billion appropriation from Congress, will computerize the Philippine passport, equipped with biometric and security features in compliance with the standards set by the International Civil Aviations Organization (ICAO). The system would also enable the DFA to build a passport database to combat passport fraud. Senator Manuel Roxas II visited the DFA’s passport division the day after the Supreme Court allowed the production of the machine-readable passports and talked to the officials about the passport modernization project. During the visit, Roxas told reporters the urgency of implementing the e-passport program considering that the Philippines’ manual passports had become antiquated. Domingo Lucenario, DFA’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said the e-passport was crucial in view of the regulation by the ICAO for all countries to have the machine-readable passports by April 1, 2010. Roxas noted that a number of Filipino travelers, particularly overseas workers, have experienced humiliation and ridicule upon presentation of their Philippine passports. At times, he said, Filipinos were subjected to interrogation at the immigration counters, or were required to form a separate queue for stricter scrutiny before allowed to enter in other countries. “It is good that the DFA can now proceed with the implementation of the e-passport. With this modernization program, our passports will become more acceptable to other countries," said Roxas. The DFA in Manila, its regional consular offices nationwide and diplomatic posts abroad issue 7,500 passports a day and 50,000 a week. A Pasig Regional Trial Court issued an injunction in February stopping the DFA from implementing the e-passport project in partnership with the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) based on a petition of BCA Corp., which signed a build-operate-transfer (BOT) contract in 2000 with the department. The DFA terminated the contract with BCA on December 9, 2005, citing the investor’s inadequate capitalization. The DFA had already placed an order for four million e-passport booklets to replenish its stock. Project proponent BCA Corp. wanted to re-negotiate the contract with the DFA as it has already infused more than P300 million in the project, but the department said the government’s decision is final. - GMANews.TV