Passport Renewal

Cols and I went to the Dept of Foreign Affairs (DFA) this afternoon for our passports. I was having my renewed while Cols was applying in behalf of Ethan. I availed of the Passport Direct service offered by Pilipinas Teleserv. We called over Steve (Dawal) to drive for us for the day, which was good because traffic to DFA was bad and there was nowhere to park.

Actually, availing of the Passport Direct service turned out to be a good idea. The lines were really long at the DFA, whereas the Passport Direct line was a breeze! We went straight in and skipped all the lines. We were escorted to a group of benches where we sat for about 5 minutes then got called to the counter. We then signed on some papers and I thumbmarked by forms once again, and that's it! We were out of there in a flash! We are supposed to just expect the passports to be delivered in a couple of weeks.

I would say the service was pretty good. The only disappointment throughout the whole experience was the pre-processing with Aboitiz 2GO. Before you can get an appointment with the DFA, the 2GO messenger will go to you first to pickup all your documents and thumbprints. When the messenger went to Peak to get mine, his stamp pad ran out of ink. So he borrowed a stamp pad from our office which had red ink. Turned out that red is not allowed. So he called me later that day (while I was at the barber shop) telling me he had to come back the next day, which caused a lot of hassle in re-arranging my scheduled appointment with DFA. Other than that, the rest of the experience went well.