By Joey Aguilar

The Philippine embassy in Doha expects the processing and releasing of passports to normalise soon with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) resolving some technical problems back home.

Normally, it takes about 45 days to process a passport (including shipping) but this was delayed for more than two months.

“The DFA wishes to inform the public that it has encountered technical problems that have led to a breakdown in passport production,” said a circular posted online. Embassy officials in various countries have re-posted the announcement on
social media such as Facebook.

“However, the Department assures the public that it has addressed these technical concerns and passport production has normalized today,” it added.

DFA also vowed to work on the delays in releasing of passports within the next three to four weeks.

Culture attaché Richard Billedo noted they still have 838 unclaimed passports at the chancery.

He said some expatriates may be too busy to get their passports while others may have left the country for good.

The embassy usually sends an SMS to the holder of the passport once it is ready for collection.

Billedo also noted that an increasing number of Filipino expatriates are availing of various consular services such as passport renewal, authentication, certificate of birth, marriage and death, clearance and visa.

Ambassador Crescente Relacion estimates that the Filipino population in Qatar remains to be at 200,000 saying that few construction workers come from the Philippines.

With the new queuing system, the embassy hopes to provide faster and quality service to expatriates and even nationals.

From an average of 70 passports, the embassy is now processing about 150 every day. In the Philippines, thousands of people apply for new passports at various DFA consular
offices including those in malls.

The embassy has reminded Filipino expatriates to renew their passports at least six months before its expiry.

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