http://www.gulftoday.ae/portal/da85d2ca-a7fb-4df2-a1a3-cc2ca5e2a84c.aspx
| BY MARIECAR JARA-PUYOD | August 04, 2010 |
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AN organisation, whose goal is protection and welfare of all Filipinos worldwide, is set to launch a signature campaign on Wednesday against the “exorbitant” increase of passport fees by all the Philippine diplomatic posts around the world.
This includes the approximately 300,000 Filipinos in the UAE,
Migrante International (MI), the organisation, will be conducting the campaign in other parts of the Middle East, United Kingdom, United States, China, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia and Italy as well, according to its Secretary General of the UAE branch, Nhel Morona.
“What we are against is the exorbitant fees exacted from all overseas Filipinos (OFs),
who are applying for passports in all diplomatic posts,” Morona told The Gulf Today on Tuesday.
“We are campaigning for the standardization of our passport fees,” he explained.
The signature campaign comes two days after the Philippine Embassy in Abu Dhabi began accepting applications for the electronic passports (e-passports) on Aug. 1. The Philippine Consulate General in Dubai started doing so last June 14, following directives from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) main headquarter in Pasay City, Metro Manila.
Morona said the campaign is being conducted because MI does not understand why OFs must pay higher fees than what is being charged by the DFA main and regional offices in the Philippines, which is Php950 (regular processing time of two weeks-Dhs79) to Php1,500 (expedited processing time at one week-Dhs125).
The two diplomatic missions in the UAE charge Dhs240 (Php2,880) for the e-passport, an increase from the Dhs200 (Php2,400) for the machine readable passports (MRPs) which had been phased out in June this year.
MI said that it had taken into consideration the costs of operations that all Philippine diplomatic missions around the world incur.
“Even if we have those microchips embedded in our e-passports and none in the MRPs, we believe the new passport fees are still high and burdensome to us who have to renew our passports overseas,” he added, when asked by this reporter if MI also considered the additional safety and security features of the e-passport.
Morona claimed that MI also included in their justification for the signature campaign the logistics expenses, specifically that of the parceling fees, since like the MRPs, e-passports are manufactured at a special section of the Central Bank of the Philippines.
Quoting from the unified press statement MI had released to the media on Tuesday, Morona said: “The new e-passport now costs Php950 to Php1,200 (Dhs79 to Dhs125) compared to Php550 to Php750 (Dhs46 to Dhs63) in the Philippines, while e-passport costs have risen abroad as much as thrice as the previous rates and approximately $6 more than the fee prescribed for e-passports in the Philippines.”
