26 December 2013 - In order to address the need for passports in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Region especially for those who were not able to get appointments for the consular outreach conducted during the year, the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh held a 10-day passport services outreach in Al-Khobar on December 8 to 12, and December 15 to 19. The outreach served 1,440 passport applicants, who otherwise who need to travel to Riyadh or wait for outreach scheduled in 2014.

The outreach was specifically designed for passport applicants who have no online appointments for the regular Embassy on Wheels (EOW) in the Eastern Region.  However, due to the volume of applicants who showed up very early on the first day of the outreach, the four-member EOW Team had to undertake measures to serve the Filipinos throughout the scheduled 10 days.

The Embassy has implemented an appointment system for its outreach since the start of 2011, and has continued to increase its outreach services every year. 

In 2010, the Embassy conducted 14 consular outreach services, followed by 19 in 2011.  The Embassy increased its services in 2012 with 24 outreach services. 

In 2013, the Embassy had scheduled 24 consular outreach services but increased its outreach services to 31 in addition to the 10 day outreach services in December.    The Embassy also conducted five passport outreach services in Riyadh, held at the Riyadh Second Industrial City.  This brings the total to 37 outreach services for 2013, the most in any of the past five years.

For 2014, the Embassy has scheduled 36 outreach services in various cities of the Kingdom.  The schedule is available on the website of the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh www.philembassy-riyadh.org .

The Embassy urges all Filipinos to plan ahead of their travel, whether to the Philippines or other countries, as a passport must be valid for at least six months beyond the duration of travel.  In addition, the Philippine e-Passport is processed and encoded by the Philippine Embassy but the information is sent to the Philippines electronically for printing.  The process of printing and return to the Embassy may take 30-45 calendar days on average.  The list of passports ready for release is available on the Embassy’s website ( www.philembassy-riyadh.org ).

The Embassy also reminded individual employers and companies that they must not hold on to the Philippine passport of their Filipino employees, as this is a violation of local laws.  In addition, the Filipino must always keep a photocopy of relevant pages of his latest passport, in case it is lost or misplaced, in order to facilitate the processing of a replacement.

The Embassy also reminds Filipinos that existing regulations do not allow the manual stamping of an extension of the validity of the passport except in extremely exceptional cases.  The rules providing for the extension of passports are posted on the Embassy’s website.

The Consular Team provided client feedback forms to applicants and distributed 1,131 forms and 733 or 65% were returned.  The results of the survey are as follows:

The regular Embassy on Wheels (EOW) will resume next year with the first one scheduled on January 10 to 11, 2014 at the Al-Jazeera International School Dammam.  The list of those with appointments will be posted on the Embassy website before the said EOW at www.philembassy-riyadh.org. END