Cayetano Lauds DFA Personnel for Improvements in Consular Services

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano today paid tribute to the men and women of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) for doing what he said was “the heavy lifting” that allowed the agency to turn around public criticism by undertaking much needed reforms that improved the delivery of consular services.

“I sincerely thank the DFA, most specially the people of the Office of Consular Affairs, for doing the heavy lifting and staying the course in our quest for better passport and consular services,” Secretary Cayetano told DFA personnel during the flag lowering ceremonies at the DFA offices at the Aseana Business Park along Macapagal Avenue in Parañaque City.

“The reforms that we started last year are now producing positive results in our efforts to deliver better passport services,” the Secretary said as he mentioned that online appointments that used to take as long as three or more months can now be secured and confirmed in just 10 days to two weeks.

“The hard work and commitment of the men and women of the DFA was vital in making these reforms possible and in providing the Filipino people with fast, efficient, accessible, and secured passport services,” he said.

Secretary Cayetano said the reforms undertaken by the DFA include the launching of the e-payment system; the Passport on Wheels (POW) Program; and the portal for first-time Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) as well as the opening of additional consular offices nationwide.

According to the Secretary, the POW was able to serve more than 222,000 passport applicants in 221 sites across the country while the OFW portal was able to assist almost 9,000 passport applicants since both programs were launched in January.

In addition, the Secretary said the DFA has been making available 10,000 appointment slots daily and is processing as many an additional 15,000 passport applications per month just by keeping its Aseana offices open to serve the public on Saturdays. Nine consular offices in various parts of the country will also be opened this year.

As a result of these initiatives, Secretary Cayetano said the show-up rates of passport applicants increased from 72 percent to 96 percent while passport processing time has been shortened from 15 working days to 12 working days for regular processing and from seven working days to six working days for express processing.

The Secretary said the DFA has also been able to increase passport production from a monthly average of 314,576 in 2017 to 358,249 in 2018. From an average daily passport capacity equivalent to 9,500 in 2017, it was able to increase it to 19,000 in terms of production capacity as of July 2018.

“The DFA is targeting to reach a total daily capacity of 30,000 passports by the end of the year,” Secretary Cayetano said,

By May next year, the Secretary said the authentication process will also be made faster, simpler, and more efficient with the accession of the Philippines to the Apostille Convention. This would do away with the requirement of having local and foreign public documents authenticated in Apostille-contracting countries.

Among the DFA’s other accomplishments was the ISO certification of its authentication and passport services that ensures that its frontline services conform to international standards.

“As a result of the hard work of our team at OCA, led by Undersecretary Jose Luis Montales, then Assistant Secretary Frank Cimafranca, and current Assistant Secretary Neil Frank Ferrer, we have managed to make the passport service, especially our online appointment system, more efficient,” he said.

“The DFA will always be part of my family, and its frontline services shall always be the public face of DFA, the perfect example of true public service that seeks to provide a comfortable life for all Filipinos.” END

(DFA Photos by MJ Roldan)