Many Filipinos have experienced
being hassled at immigration counters around the world or being offloaded from
planes because of issues like human trafficking and carrying prohibited items
like fake Gucci bags. Then there’s the reputation of Philippine-issued passports
as being very easy to forge although some security features had already been
added to them through the years.
Well, the Philippine passport may
finally earn some degree of respectability when the new breed of “e” or
electronic Philippine passports roll out starting January next year from a
plant inaugurated recently by President Aquino in Malvar, Batangas. The
new e-Passports are touted to be state-of-the-art and with more and better
security features to deter forgery or tampering.
They would contain the biometrics of
the owners and some other stuff better not discussed to make them more
difficult to reverse-engineer. They would no longer be produced by the Bangko
Sentral ng Pilipinas but by the government-owned printer APO Production Unit
tapped by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to ease the backlog in
passports production.
From the present 15-day wait, it
would only take 10 days for the new e-Passports to be ready for delivery, while
express processing will now only take five days from the erstwhile seven days.
The passport booklet will also be made of more durable material,
guaranteed against wear and tear past the issuance validity period.
Well, we just hope that the
e-Passports would not go of the way of the new motor vehicle license plates
with their delayed release and the many complaints as to their lack of
durability. We can’t help but to air this caveat considering that many
government pronouncements have turned out to be far removed from reality.
Image by: Manila Bulletin
Walang komento:
Mag-post ng isang Komento