Filipinos take to social media to air grievances over delays in DFA passport application
Do you have problems with your passport application? You are not alone.
A number of Filipinos have been taking to social media to air their grievances caused by delays and other hiccups in their passport application, days after the Department of Foreign Affairs stated that it has already rolled out measures to address the problem.
Posts by the Department of Foreign Affairs in its Facebook page continue to be filled by complaints from Filipinos about their passports. The complaints range from delays in the delivery of their passports, unavailability of appointment slots, to alleged unresponsiveness of the DFA hotline.
In one reply, the DFA account responded to a query about the availability of appointment slots for October that “more slots for passport appointments will open in the coming weeks.”
Over at Twitter, searching “DFA Passport” will also turn up a litany of complaints from various users.
The DFA released a statement on Sept. 24 to cite the steps they have taken “to ease the passport backlog.”
These steps include the opening of so-called “temporary offsite passport services facilities” in the provinces to increase the passport appointment slots. These sites will reportedly be put up in San Pedro, Laguna; Cebu City, Davao City, and Lipa City.
The DFA has also relocated its passport releasing services to Double Dragon Plaza in Pasay City “to make the process more convenient to the applicants.”
The DFA, however, noted that delayed applications “were caused by applicants’ errors in the names or dates of birth in the online application form, which required manual correction.” There were reportedly 26,000 such applications received by the DFA, which have been trimmed down to 17,000.
For October to December 2021, DFA said that the appointment slots have not yet been loaded as they are still making adjustments to their system. (Bim Santos)