Called To Serve

Why is a passport considered a prized document in this country?

Well, anybody who has one can tell you that getting such a document requires a ton of hard work. You have to have a birth certificate authenticated by the National Statistics Office or NSO (a mean feat if you ask me) and spend at least two days standing in line at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to file your application and claim your passport.

Things are about to change though. Starting Monday, you will be able to renew your passport the same way you buy a pizza. All you have to do is call.

A company called Pilipinas Teleserv Inc. (PTI) has come up with a revolutionary process that simplifies how people renew their passports and acquire other important documents. The DFA Passport Direct is a service that will allow people to renew their expired passports without going to the DFA.

Vice President and Foreign Affairs Secretary Teofisto Guingona is reportedly excited about the new service since it will be his first concrete contribution to the department. He will personally lead its launching on Monday.

Young founders

Who are the people behind DFA Passport Direct? You may be surprised to know that they are so young and not even in their 30s.

Raffy David, Jeffrey Villanueva and Jun Yupitun were college schoolmates at De La Salle and all have worked for different companies since graduating in 1991.

David is a customer relations specialist, Villanueva a Web programmer and designer, and Yupitun a call center expert who is credited for the concept of the Passport Direct.

The three hit upon the concept at a despedida party for a common friend (who incidentally didn’t attend the event) in October 1999.

"We were initially thinking of a website on food delivery. But we realized that it was not a good business model. The Internet is good, but its time here has yet to come. Filipinos are not yet ready for it," David recalled.

Yupitun thus brought up the idea of a company that would serve as call center for passport applicants. He had been thinking of ways to expedite the process of securing passports, and being a licensed electronics and communications engineer with six years of actual experience in call center design, he knew the solution lay not on the Internet but on the telephone.

"The telephone still provides the most convenient way of transacting business," he said. "You can find a phone almost anywhere."

The three immediately put their idea on paper and set a meeting with DFA officials. But things went too slow in the department where people are known to eat protocol for breakfast. Thus, the three eventually looked for another agency to offer their services.

They then saw the NSO.

"We believe we have the solution for anything na may pila at may kailangang i-deliver," said Yupitun. "We were really confident we could be of help to the government."

Just one call

It is interesting to note that PTI’s break also came through one phone call. Yupitun called the NSO’s director of civil registration and was told to go directly to the agency’s administrator.

"Madali namang kausap si administrator," he was told. "Puntahan mo lang."

Without even knowing the administrator’s name, Yupitun went to the NSO in Sta. Mesa, Manila one afternoon in January last year. At past 5 o’clock, after waiting for 15 minutes, he was ushered to the office of Tomas Africa, the NSO chief.

"We talked for an hour and Administrator Africa agreed in principle to what we were offering the NSO. I called Raffy and Jeffrey and said ‘Okay na, closed na,’" Yupitun said.

The three made a formal presentation a week later and on March 22, signed a contract with Africa for the NSO Helpline Plus!. The service allows people wanting to get NSO-authenticated copies of birth, death and marriage certificates (or certificate of no marriage) through the phone.

How the service works

If you’re in need of any of the said documents, just dial 737-11-11 and one of the PTI’s 70 telephone operators will guide you in filling up an electronic application form. Give the name of the person in the document you wish to get, his birth date, place of birth, etc., and you will receive a 10-digit reference number which you have to bring to any Metrobank branch with your P175 payment.

The same day you make your payment, PTI will receive a confirmation from the bank and the following morning, will send your application to the NSO. After five days, PTI will get your document and prepare to send it through LBC. The next day, expect an LBC courier at your door with your crisp, authenticated document printed on a security paper. The process takes a maximum of nine days.

"We designed the system to be as simple as possible," said David. "And we offer the same level of service to all customers, regardless of where they are in the country. Someone from Camp Abubakar in Mindanao will get his birth certificate the same way and within the same timeframe as someone from Makati. And they pay the same price."

The PTI designed a different system for the Passport Direct. Here, the company will use couriers in picking up the expired passports. Customers will also have to call a certain number (to be announced Monday) and fill up an application form through the phone. A courier will then go to the customer to have him sign the application, get his old passport, his picture and payment. After a week, another courier delivers the fresh passport to the customer.

The DFA service will cost P1,200.

Costly? Think again

Many would probably think that the fees being charged by PTI are a bit exorbitant. You can’t blame these people. PTI charges P175 for a P25 birth certificate and P1,200 for a P500 passport (P650 if you have it done overnight). But then, the costs of these documents are negligible compared to what one has to pay in personally getting them.

Consider this scenario. If you’re somebody who lives, say, in Laguna, you will have to shell out at least P120 for a roundtrip to the NSO. You will have to forego your earnings for the day (minimum of P250) since you’ll be spending your entire day traveling and filling up your application. And of course, you’ll have to eat and spend at least P50. At the end of the day, you end up spending about P420.

And David said this is actually only half of your expenses.

"You cannot get your NSO document the same day so you’ll have to come back at a certain date. That doubles the cost to P840," he said.

For the Passport Direct service, many would think that they can renew their passports through their travel agents. True. But it would surely cost more.

"We offer a cheaper rate compared to travel agencies," said David. "And all your documents are insured with us. You won’t have to worry about your old passport getting lost. Whatever our courier gets from you is insured. We’ll replace your old passport if it gets lost. If it has a valid US visa or any other visa, we’ll also replace it."

What allows PTI to lower its cost is the fact that it doesn’t give anything but service to the government. No bribes here and there. No hidden charges either. And profit is a secondary concern.

"We’re not really thinking of profits," said Yupitun. "We’re here for service. We want to provide help to the government without cost to them. And we want to improve the quality of life in this country. We simply hate queues."