Negros Occidental Rep. Apolinario Lozada, chairman of the House committee on foreign relations, said over dzRH radio he will order an investigation of the passport division if the DFA does not come up with a solution to the shortage within 72 hours.
"I cannot really understand why the DFA overlooked this problem," he said.
Lozada said thousands of Filipinos would not be able to return home or travel abroad if the problem is not immediately solved.
Internal problems within the DFA are the principal causes of the passport shortage, Lozada added.
Sen. Teresa Aquino-Oreta also called yesterday on Vice President Teofisto Guingona, who is also secretary of foreign affairs, to let "heads roll" over the passport shortage because it has inconvenienced thousands of traveling Filipinos.
"Vice President and DFA Secretary Guingona should make sure that heads would roll over this mess," she said. "A leadership overhaul at the DFA offices concerned is imperative because this foul-up is becoming an embarrassment for President Arroyo who pledged last year to cut red tape and speed up delivery of frontline services to the public."
Oreta said Mrs. Arroyo promised in her State of the Nation Address last year to make the bureaucracy more efficient and speed up government services at the DFA, Land Transportation Office and the National Statistics Office.
Oreta said the DFA must explain why it had allowed the problem to worsen when officials had detected the shortage of passports as early as January.
Guingona should look into the reported anomalies at the DFA involving the issuance of passports and file charges against those involved, she added.
The DFA, however, may no longer issue passports to thousands of applicants beginning early May this year because the remaining booklets might only last for the next seven weeks.
Sources in the DFA said the remaining 350,001 passport booklets to be delivered by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) will last only until early May based on the 9,000 booklets needed by the DFA on a daily basis for the home office, 10 regional offices, embassies and consulates abroad.
For its part, the BSP denied yesterday reports that its printing failure had caused the shortage in passport booklets at Philippine consulates offices.
BSP Gov. Rafael Buenaventura said on the same radio station that they only print and deliver the number of passports that the DFA has requested.
Passports are printed at the Bangko Sentral’s security printing unit, which also turns out the country’s peso bills, he added.
Buenaventura said the BSP as actually way ahead of its printing contract with the DFA which had originally ordered 800,000 passport booklets for delivery starting this month until September.
According to him, it was not true that the BSP’s security printing plant suffered a breakdown and caused the delay in delivery of the booklets.
"In fact, we have been working overtime, printing passports six days a week instead of five," he said. As a result, Buenaventura said the BSP has been able to stay ahead of its contract with the DFA and as of March 15, it had delivered a total of 449,999 passport booklets.
"This is already (more than half) half of our contract," he said.
Buenaventura said he has already met with Guingona and they agreed to conduct a joint investigation to find out how the whole controversy started.
The shortage of passports in Philippine embassies in the Middle East and Europe was exposed by Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco, who had gone to Saudi Arabia to take part in congressional hearings on the absentee voting bill.
Syjuco said he had received reports that passports are also in short supply in Philippine consulates in San Francisco and Los Angeles in California, USA, and in Hong Kong.
Syjuco has asked on the House of Representatives to find out who should be held responsible for the DFA’s failure to deliver ample supply for passports in Philippine embassies and consulates.
In a resolution filed before the House committee on foreign relations, Syjuco said: "Due to the delayed or non-issuance of this vital documents, many OFWs who need to go back to the Philippines due to emergencies such as death in the family, among other reasons, are left stranded in Manila after they were informed that there will be a delay in the issuance of passports."
The DFA and Bangko Sentral should take the responsibility for the problem because they are in charge of the issuance and printing of passports, Syjuco added. – With reports from Aurea Calica, Des Feriols, Pia Lee-Brago