On the Philippine E-Passport

Last August 11, 2009 the Department of Foreign Affairs launched the Philippine Electronic Passport with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the guest of honor and recipient of the first Philippine E-Passport. The launch was preceded by a ribbon-cutting of an exhibit on the history of the Philippine passport from the Spanish period to the present.

It is gratifying to note that many people found the exhibit interesting. I'm proud to have been its project coordinator just as I am proud of the art work put into it by my friend Gerry Suliguin. Many people contributed their bits and pieces to make the event a success, and to them I give many thanks as well.

Reproduced here is an article by UP Prof. Butch Dalisay in the September 14 issue of the Philippine Star that made mention of the exhibit (and my name!).

Thanks, professor!



Smile - you're on an ePassport
PENMAN By Butch Dalisay
September 14, 2009 12:00 AM


One of the great side benefits of being a writer — in both journalistic and literary capacities — has been the opportunity to do a bit of traveling abroad, something I’d dreamed of feverishly since childhood, when we accompanied a departing neighbor to the old Manila International Airport and when I saw that Pan Am jet take off for the pink horizon.

Many decades and a couple of dozen countries later, I continue to be thrilled by the prospect of travel, despite the aches that now attend every long flight and my general desire to come home after a week or two. I still look forward to — and save up for — my annual visit to my daughter, mother, and sister in America, and am gratified when an invitation comes along (a rarity in these recessionary times) to fly off to some literary festival at the host’s expense.

Thus, one of the things I’m very careful about is my passport, which I keep along with other important documents in a small fireproof box at home. I’ve collected quite a few passports over the years, even given that I started traveling fairly late — at the ripe old age of 26 in 1980, on my first visit to the US. Now and then I look these passports over, and marvel at how such a hairy and reed-thin young man could metamorphose into this fat and balding creature I wince at every morning in the bathroom mirror.

About three weeks ago, I came across a press release from the Department of Foreign Affairs announcing the imminent availability of a new kind of passport — an ePassport, a state-of-the–technology travel document with whiz-bang features aimed at preventing tampering and fraud. As a self-styled techie, I was instantly intrigued. Now, I’ve never lost a passport, and I can’t see anyone wanting to steal my mug, but I’m hopelessly attracted to anything with a computer chip and a hologram, and while I had nowhere interesting to go until mid-October, I convinced myself that a new ePassport was the thing to get and to try. I remembered how my old green one wouldn’t register at the self-check-in kiosks in Stateside airports, requiring some manual intervention by a bleary-eyed clerk.

I noted the date that the DFA was going to begin taking applications for the new ePassport — August 26 — and made an appointment online at the DFA website (www.dfa.gov.ph) to be there on that day and be among the first in the queue.

There are a few things I need to make clear at this point. Since the current number of ePassports is limited, the DFA is giving them out for the time being only for renewals, not for first-time applicants. There’s a list of requirements and some paperwork to complete — all the forms are online — and you do need to make that appointment online and be prepared to appear in person at the DFA office along Roxas Boulevard on the day and time slot reserved for you, as indicated in the e-mailed confirmation you’ll get pretty quickly; this is something your travel agent can’t for you just yet. And don’t forget to bring P950 for the new passport.

Having done all of these, I turned up at 9 a.m. on August 26 at DFA’s Gate 2 (another entrance on the Libertad side), through which all passport applicants pass. I found my way to Window 28, where ePassport applications are received, only to discover that I had filled out the wrong application — the one for the regular maroon machine-readable passport, which remains a valid option for most people until the ePassport can be fully regularized. This, of course, is every paper-chaser’s Kafkaesque nightmare: shuffling around the bureaucracy from window to window, from room to room, only to be apprised of more requirements or to be told the dreaded words that government clerks seem trained to recite in a monotone, “Come back tomorrow.”

Thankfully the clerk who took my form seemed understanding enough, and even smiled when I found the presence of mind to ask to see her supervisor, so I could explain myself. I hadn’t intended to use my media connection to gain any advantage in the process — and indeed, I never do — but having sincerely applied and fallen in line like everybody else, I thought I might as well identify myself as a footloose writer intrigued by this newfangled technology, which I certainly was that morning. I was directed upstairs to the office of the chief of consular affairs, who turned out to be a very pleasant man named Renato Villapando. He and his assistant Fernando Beup seemed to know me from my writing — another happy surprise — and promptly walked me through the rest of the application procedure. (It emerged that I had caused the foul-up by applying a few hours too early — the proper form for the ePassport was uploaded after I went online — so Asst. Sec. Villapando had to approve my modified application personally.)

I took the opportunity to find out more about the DFA’s new baby. Given our country’s position as one of the world’s chief suppliers of skilled labor (not to mention Disneyland tourists and Hong Kong viajeras), the DFA processes an enormous number of passport applications every day — a number that jumped from 500 in 1980 to 3,000 at present. With all this traffic, some passports don’t pass through the DFA — the fake and tampered ones, which often lead to grievous consequences for the holder. Thus, the DFA under Sec. Alberto Romulo has given high priority to improving passport security, leading to the ePassport, an innovation now adopted by more than 60 countries worldwide, including five other Asean countries.

What exactly is so special about the ePassport? The maroon MRP meets minimum global standards for security, but the ePassport has enhanced features like an embedded microchip that contains the photograph and personal data of the bearer. It employs biometric technology, and has invisible digital watermarks readable only under UV light. And here’s one neat trick: your passport photo is actually made up of microletters readable by a special decoding lens. In other words, until the next criminal genius comes along, this document is virtually tamper- and counterfeit-proof.

Oh, yes — when you apply for your ePassport, do come in your Sunday best and with your hair nicely done. Smile — but no teeth showing, please. I discovered that they’ll take your digital picture on the spot; the old passport photo will soon be a thing of the past. I came with my crew cut standing on end and my shirt collar wilted by the morning heat, an ignominy I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my new ePassport’s five-year validity.

It takes a few weeks to receive the new passport, so be sure you’re not going anywhere in the meantime. Also, your old green or maroon passport remains valid until its expiration date, although you can choose to renew and upgrade it to an ePassport now, following the process I outlined earlier.

And if you have time, visit the very interesting exhibit on the history of the Philippine passport — from Rizal’s time to ours — in the DFA lobby. Among other snippets of information, you’ll discover that President Ramon Magsaysay never traveled abroad while he was in Malacañang. Apparently, it isn’t just technology that’s radically changed.

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