(Photo: Department of Foreign Affairs Republic of the Philippines/ Facebook)
MANILA — The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is not yet inclined to remove the passport appointment system, which to date still faces numerous backlogs.
In a press conference on Friday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said the adoption of a walk-in system is currently out of question due to the influx of passport applicants.
“We’re not saying the appointment system is ok,” he said, but pointed out that at present, “it’s the best system” to implement.
“We’re only doing 9,000 a day but we’re doing 15,500 (applicants),” he explained.”If applicants a day are around 60,000 and our capacity is 50 (thousand) we can do walk-ins, but if our capacity is less than 20,000 a day we cannot,” he added.
Cayetano said around three million Filipinos flock to DFA annually to apply for passports.
Prior to 2010, the agency said before DFA-Office of Consular Affairs was moved to the DFA-Aseana Building, there was no appointment system and long lines stretch up to Libertad Street.
In 2012, Pilipinas Teleserv until July 2016 managed the queue in DFA-Aseana, minus the regional consular offices (RCO) and satellite offices (SO).
After a few months, the online appointment system was established, now with the inclusion of RCOs and SOs.