Philippine consulate in UAE braces for rush to get e-passports

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Consulate in Dubai is bracing for a rush of applicants on June 16, when it will start issuing machine-readable passports (MRPs) to Filipino workers and their families there. Online news site Khaleej Times reported Saturday night that the consulate also expects a rush of Filipinos from the Northern Emirates. Dubai and the Northern Emirates in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are home to 218,242 Filipino expatriates. The consulate said it is receiving over 100 applications daily for the manually-scripted green passports. But Consul General Benito Valeriano says more may come forward to apply due to the pending applications as an offshoot to the introduction of the e-passport. "This rush, however, will taper off as we continue to issue the new e-passports," he said. A trial run on the issuance of MRP was done last June 4, during which 25 applications were received. Following the trial run, the Philippine consulate saw the need for new computers and additional Manila-trained regular staff. Valeriano said applicants have to personally apply at the consulate by bringing their passports and passport-sized pictures with blue background. After that, these documents and the application form will be forwarded to Manila for the printing of e-passports. Initially, the printing of the MRPs will be centralized in Manila, which is already receiving hundreds of thousands of applications daily from the Metro Manila applicants alone. Because of this, Philippine missions in the UAE would be in a wait-and-see situation to fully know how many days it would take for the new e-passport to arrive. Valeriano said the diplomatic missions in the region have already made their recommendations to print the MRPs at any of the big missions in the Middle East, which may either be Riyadh or Jeddah in Saudi Arabia or Dubai in UAE. For its part, the Philippine embassy in Abu Dhabi has already started accepting and processing 85 applications for e-passport since June 1. Consul-General Noel Servigon is urging all Filipinos with expiring passports to renew early to avoid the rush in the coming months. He said that the diplomatic mission would only know the exact number of days it would take to get an e-passport once the first batch of MRPs reaches Manila. - GMANews.TV