The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced on Sunday, January 13, that those who will renew their electronic passports no longer need to bring their birth certificate.
On Twitter, DFA Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato said that rule requiring applicants of passport renewal to bring a copy of their birth certificate only applies to non-e-passport holders and not e-passport holders.
“Yes, if the passport being renewed is an electronic passport, applicants don’t have to present original birth certificates as we should already have captured those at the time of application. Those with non e-passports issued before 2011 will have to present those documents,” Cato said.
The e-Passport is the one on the right. You don’t need to bring your birth certificate if you have that passport. If not, please make sure you bring your birth certificate with you. pic.twitter.com/8UMJOfX5zL
— Elmer G Cato (@elmer_cato) January 12, 2019
Earlier, DFA Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. revealed that the previous outsourced passport maker ran away and did not turn over the previously acquired data back to the government when their contract was terminated.
“We are rebuilding our files from scratch because previous outsourced passport maker took all the data when contract (was) terminated,” Locsin said on his personal Twitter account.
“Because previous contractor got pissed when terminated it made off with data. We did nothing about it or couldn’t because we were in the wrong. It won’t happen again. Passports pose national security issues and cannot be kept back by private entities. Data belongs to the state,” he said in another post.
Due to the incident, Cato said that Filipino applicants renewing their old passports are required to bring the original copy of their birth certificates.
