Travel agencies and Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) employees are no longer entitled to fixed appointment slots for passport application and renewal, the agency said Monday.

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The DFA said that starting last August 1, the 1,200 slots reserved daily for its employees and for travel agencies had been redistributed to the public.

“We want to give back the appointment slots to the Filipino public,” said Ricarte Abejuela III, acting director of the Passport Division of the Office of Consular Affairs.

Abejuela added that with the DFA’s new policy, clients of travel agencies should go through the same process as all other applicants when applying for or renewing a passport.

According to the official, travel agencies were not the only ones making adjustments “for the greater good” as DFA employees’ privilege to use the courtesy lane had also been restricted.

Under the new system, the DFA said only immediate family members of its employees – parents, spouse, children, siblings, grandparents, grandchildren and parents-in-law – would have access to its express lane.

“So we all need to make changes for everybody’s sake. We really want to give back the courtesy lane to those who are entitled to it. These are the senior citizens, persons with disabilities, pregnant, solo parents, children 7 years old and below, and Overseas Filipino Workers,” he said.

With the newly freed up courtesy lane slots, Abejuela said the DFA would expand the courtesy lane to OFWs who are working abroad for the first time.

“Our policy now is that no OFW should be left without a job just because he couldn’t get a passport,” he added.

Apart from these reforms, the DFA said it also opened thousands of appointment slots after it increased the consular offices’ appointment quotas and cleaned up bogus appointments created by unscrupulous individuals.

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A total of 94,350 additional slots were opened from July to August, while 86,889 have been added so far for September, the DFA said.

The agency said it already brought down to zero the backlog of 33,000 applications pending investigation under the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. CBB

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