When my turn came to submit my renewal application, the evaluator told me that I looked familiar. I smiled and told her if she is watching TV series and she immediately shouted and said that I was the Professor in Lobo! She caught the attention of the people waiting in the line and the other evaluators! That was the greatest consolation that I got for the pains of going through Extra Challenge!

After my ego tripping portion with the evaluator, we were told to proceed to the DFA auditorium for the encoding. I followed the flow of the people going to the Auditorium only to find myself again following another long line! This time however, it is physically painful, the line was so long that we were already outside the building under the burning 12:00 noon sun! It took the guards and the DFA staff some 10 minutes to decide that since the line towards the auditorium is already very long such that we were already exposed to the sun, they herded us to the lines of the cashier.

We were made to proceed to pay the P500 passport processing fee first. But, unfortunately, since it was already 12:00 noon, the Cashiers were already having their lunch break. The four cashier windows were already closed but four lines of humanity who had not taken lunch yet were formed in front.

After about five minutes, I dignified lad wearing brown slacks and black blazer came out from a door and saw us in front of the closed cashier windows. I “acted out” and made a dialogue how miserable our situation was. She must be the big boss since she went to the cashiers’ booths and after a few minutes, the cashier windows were opened.

After I made my payment, I again went with the flow of people as we were told to stay and have a seat at the area of the evaluators and wait for 1:00 p.m. when the encoders at the Auditorium would have space for to accommodate us. I did not leave to eat lunch same with the others for fear that we will already at the farthest end of the line upon our return.

I was with the first batch of 40 persons who were led by the DFA guards to the DFA Auditorium at 1:00 p.m. When I entered the Auditorium, I say a double letter S formation of this blue and gray plastic chairs where the passport applicants are made to wait in a line for their turn with the encoders. By this time, we were already familiar with our co-applicants and we were already having small talks. A woman with a big traveling bag told us that she came straight from the airport from a flight from Iloilo. She preferred to renew her passport at the DFA Manila because it will take one month and a half for the Iloilo DFA regional office to issue the passport. Since she is leaving next week, she needed the passport immediately.

While we were waiting for our turn with the encoders, a scholarly looking couple made a rough computation: if the DFA would target to complete the issuance of machine readable passports to even only 60 million Filipinos who would personally appear at the DFA, assuming that the DFA is open 365 days in a year (DFA is open Mondays to Fridays only) or 730 days in two years, there will be 82,192 people who would be at the DFA everyday!

I also learned from my new friends in the line that I will have to fall in line again to claim my passport after two weeks but if I want, I can go the DFA basketball court where the office of the Pilipinas Teleserv Inc of Aboitiz 2GO is located. For the fee of P180.00, the Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. will claim my passport from DFA and deliver it to my address.

After the encoding of my personal information, the final task is the printing of my thumb mark. It was already 1:30 in the afternoon when I left the Auditorium having completed the Extra Challenge for a record of 3 hours!

I went to the DFA Basketball court and made arrangement with Pilipinas Teleserv Inc for the delivery of my passport to my address.

When I arrived home, I was dead tired and told my daughters what I had gone through! My youngest daughter was laughing and told me that for the renewal of her passport into machine readable one, she paid only P1,300.00 with that Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. First, she called up Pilipinas Teleserv Inc which made an appointment for her to go the DFA Basketball court, then she was made to have thumb marks and in less than 20 minutes, she was done! Tsk, tsk, tsk, Moral of the story: ask your daughter first and do not be too gullible on what the DFA website says!

At hindsight, I wish to suggest to the DFA the following recommendations. I saw three dedicated windows of evaluators for senior citizens. There should also be dedicated windows for those applicants for renewal of passports who made appointment with the DFA website in the internet, another dedicated windows for those who applied for renewal appointment at the DFA and several windows dedicated for new passport applications. You see with the segregation, the waiting time for those applying for passport renewal would be eliminated since they have already complete supporting documents. Thus, the time consuming negotiation with the new applicants with incomplete supporting documents will be in separate windows.

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