DFA Experience

At 2:30 AM today, my wife and I went to the Department of Foreign Affairs to renew my passport and to apply for my daughter's passport. When we arrived, there were quite a number of people already lining up outside the office (read: side street), you can just imagine what time they arrived there.

The DFA started giving out priority numbers at around 6:40 AM, 4 hours after we arrived. My wife got #29 while I got #30. The department announced some time ago that everyday, they will be giving out only up to 200 priority numbers, that's why people line up outside very early.

I was optimistic that we would be able to go home early but I was surprised when it was announced that the pending people, or those people asked to go back on that day, will no longer be getting priority numbers and will just be called by names, the same with senior citizens. When they called and asked the pendings and seniors to sit on the plastic benches, there were about 50 of them. 50 more ahead of us, so that makes my #30 really #80. Great!

The office was very small for a national government agency so it was like being inside a big can of sardines. There were only 2 officers receiving and checking the requirements, 4 officers doing the encoding of information and biometrics (thumb prints and picture taking), and 1 VERY SLOW cashier. The whole process was very slow, but when we reached the final step, paying for our everything, the slow process was brought to a full stop by the cashier. He's a big guy, taller than me, but he moved like a princess entering a ball. He would call up names usually in ten's, then after, he would go around to his office mates, then slowly go back to his station, count money, then again and again arranges the money and slowly returns them to the cash register, then looks around, looks at the pending papers in front of him, and goes back to calling the names. The payment part was supposed to be the easiest and fastest part of the whole process. It was as if the cashier didn't want to get the payments. And mind you, now that the DFA is implementing the E-Passport, the fees just increased. It's 950 Pesos for the 22 working-days processing, and 1200 Pesos for the 15 working-days processing.

We were done by 11:40 AM, tired and sleepy. I'm so glad that the passport's life is 5 years. At least, I won't be lining up again for hours to renew it anytime soon. I hope that the DFA will find better ways to renewing passports in 5 years. They can start by telling their people to do their jobs with a little sense of urgency.