Dubai: The two-month waiting time for getting appointments for new passport applications at the Philippine Consulate-General in Dubai is expected to significantly reduce soon, a consul official said.
Consul-General Frank Cimafranca told reporters on Wednesday that a new a Biometric Data Capturing Machine for passport encoding will soon be deployed to Dubai from Manila in order to accommodate more passport applications on a given day. Currently, the consulate has three machines and processes up to 250 passport applications per day or 5,000 per month.
“The machine is ready and we’re hoping to get it within the year. It’s a mobile passport encoding machine so we can use it here and even during our mobile consular services in other emirates,” Cimafranca said.
Cimafranca explained that with the current system, an applicant waits roughly two months to book an appointment for passport renewal. With the additional machine, he said they aim to shorten the waiting period and serve more applicants daily.
Cimafranca said he also hopes to make consular services more efficient with the approval of 10 additional staff by 2014. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila has approved the requested additional manpower but it is awaiting budget approval by the Philippine Congress. Currently, the consulate has 27 personnel, including local hires, that serve the more than 400,000 Filipino expatriates in Dubai and the northern emirates.
“At the moment, most of our staff members have multiple roles. But by next year, we will be lucky if we have at least half of the 10 additional staff to help out,” Cimafranca said.
During the briefing, Cimafranca also said the Philippine government is considering to upgrade the current system to incorporate the iris recognition or scan into the biometric passports, which currently uses face and fingerprint recognition. “The move is meant to bolster the security features of the passport and to curb passport fraud which leads to human trafficking,” Cimafranca said.
