Philippine ambassador Wilfredo Santos at the live demonstration of the e-passport system at the embassy yesterday.

By Joey Aguilar/Staff Reporter

The opening of a new electronic passport (e-passport) plant in the Philippines will “significantly improve the turnaround time” for the issue of passports applied for in Qatar and other countries, ambassador Wilfredo Santos has said.
From the current six-eight weeks, the envoy noted that the e-passport system would help reduce the time taken to process and release of passports to various embassies abroad.
These applications could be for new passports or renewal.
Santos was speaking on the occasion of the plant’s inauguration yesterday, which was shown live at the embassy in Doha along with a demonstration of the new system. Besides Santos, the event was attended by embassy officials, staff and members of the Filipino
community in Qatar.
President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino led the unveiling of the e-passport system at the three-hectare plant in Batangas, Philippines, yesterday.
Representatives of Filipino organisations in Doha also attended the live demonstration held from 5am (Doha time). A similar demonstration was held in Singapore as well.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the printing plant have considered the use of inline printers, which have doubled the capacity of the currently used printers, to increase the production of
passports,” the envoy noted.
The DFA’s Consular Affairs Office faced numerous backlogs and delays in passport processing over the past years, it was learnt. It could only accommodate up to 6,000 passports per day, which is around 9,000 short of the average daily requirement of 15,000.
Once the new e-passport system is fully implemented, Santos said the “turnaround time” for passport release is expected to be shortened with the use of the new inline printers, one of which was also part of the demonstration at the chancery in Doha yesterday.
“For now, the existing timeframe of six-eight weeks will remain until the advent of the new system,” he pointed out.
He added that embassies abroad would be notified about the time of its implementation as the DFA and APO Production Unit (a printing facility) are still negotiating the terms of agreement for the new e-passport system.
“Hopefully, this will happen soon because we are encountering long delays in the release of passports to our people here in Doha,” Santos stressed.
For new applicants such as newborns, the envoy has instructed the passport section to prioritise the release of such passports by co-ordinating directly with the DFA in Manila.
He said parents of these babies need the passports for visa issuance purposes in Qatar.
Santos also announced that Filipinos can have their expired (and about to expire) passports revalidated or extended for at least one year at no cost to the applicants based on the
instructions of the DFA.
The new passport will feature an “intricate and tamper-proof design”, according to Manila Bulletin, a national daily in the Philippines.
Each page displays lines of the national anthem, ‘Lupang Hinirang’, with Philippine tourist spots in the background. A page is dedicated to the full text of Filipino national hero Jose Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell).