DFA takes measures to speed up passport appointment system

More Filipinos will soon be able to expedite their passport application and renewal as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) started to implement reforms in the appointment system.

According to Assistant Secretary Frank Cimafranca of the Office of Consular Affairs, DFA increased consular offices’ appointment quotas by employing more staffs and has invalidated bogus appointments to cater more passport applicants in no time.

Cimafranca said DFA opened a total of 94,350 appointment slots from July to August—62,450 were added due to the increase in appointment quotas, while 31,900 came from cleaning up of fictitious appointments.

“The goal is to serve as many people as we can efficiently and effectively, so those slots had to be cleaned up. And that’s what we did,” Cimafranca said in a statement.

The increase in personnel also allowed DFA to reschedule 900 appointments to earlier dates.

In DFA’s Aseana office alone, the capacity to accept and process daily appointments increased from 1,900 to 3,300.

DFA Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano earlier vowed to revoke the passport appointment system to speed up the process in applying for passports.