Last trip

President Arroyo is scheduled to leave tomorrow for China to attend the Shanghai World Expo 2010 where the Philippines is one of the participating countries. She would grace the Philippine National Day that will be featured at the Shanghai World Expo and at the same time leads the 35th anniversary of RP-China diplomatic relations. The President is one of the world leaders who were invited by the Chinese government for the World Expo.

She would be accompanied in Shanghai by a small team of Philippine delegation led by Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alberto Romulo without the usual coterie of presidential junketeers who joined her past official trips abroad. It will just be a quick trip as she is coming back to Manila Thursday morning.

Amid her much maligned frequent foreign travels, Romulo could only laud the Chief Executive for doing these as the country’s chief diplomat. “The President’s high level visits reaped many benefits to the Filipino people.” He feted Mrs. Arroyo during a retrospective seminar of foreign policy thrusts and achievements in a program marking DFA’s 112th anniversary.  

Through more than nine years of her economic diplomacy, the country was able to attract a number of significant investments and official development assistance, particularly the boom of the business process outsourcing sector, Romulo pointed out. Thus, he cited, the Philippine economy remained resilient despite global recession with the President’s economic initiatives with the international community by personally going out of her way to meet with fellow heads of state and foreign business and industry leaders abroad.

 This Shanghai trip is her last official trip before she bows out as one of the most traveled world leaders. I have lost count as to how many foreign travels President Arroyo did from her Day One in office in January 2001 to date. Certainly, it would be a record of sorts for her, too.

But that would be diminishing the significance of many of these official travels she has made, especially those that benefited our country’s national interest before the world community. I covered some of these foreign trips that The STAR paid for, while I was still pounding the Malacañang Palace beat. Those Presidential trips were definitely no junkets for the working press, especially in meeting deadlines in countries where we have 12 to 24-hour time zone difference.

The experience, however, of having covered many of these Presidential trips abroad gave me quite a collection of Philippine passports. This I connected myself when the DFA Secretary invited us media to the formal presentation of the new Office of Consular Affairs building two weeks ago. The DFA transferred its consular services in this building where applications and issuance of state-of-the-art Philippine electronic passports are now being processed. The new building is located at the corner of Bradco and Diosdado Macapagal Avenues in the Aseana Business Park in Parañaque City.

President Arroyo was the recipient of the first e-Passport presented to her by Romulo during DFA’s 111th Founding Day last year. The President’s e-Passport bears the serial number EA0000001. Like everyone else excited to try it, Mrs. Arroyo scanned her e-Passport on the passport reader that detects its basic features like the passport holder’s biometric information (thumb prints of both left and right hands), digital signature, and camera-to-computer photograph.

A joint project of the DFA and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the issuance of the e-Passport makes our country compliant with international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) where the Philippines is a member. The BSP awarded the e-Passport project to French firm Oberthur Technologies that bested 14 other bidders in 2007. Oberthur made the first ICAO-compliant e-Passport in the world (Belgium) and also provided the electronic component of the first ICAO-compliant e-Passport in Asia (Thailand).

With enhanced security features, the DFA chief cited the Philippine e-Passport facilitates and hastens the entry formalities of Filipino travelers to other countries. He said Filipinos traveling abroad, especially our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) stand to benefit most from the globally-compliant e-Passport currently being used in over 60 countries now out of the 190 ICAO contracting States that have met the latest standards in passport technology.

The e-Passport’s security features contain a hidden encoded image, an ultra-thin, holographic laminate, and a tamper-proof electronic microchip. Its Integrated Circuit (IC) chip stores the passport holder’s photograph and other personal data for easy verification of identity and is fully inter-operable which means that the chip can be read by immigration control officials in other countries using a passport chip reader. Overt and hidden security features such as invisible personal information, letter-screen, micro-printing and UV reactive ink. Thus, these security features cut down the nefarious trade of syndicates engaged in passport fraud and tampering crimes.

Despite its advanced security features, the DFA charges a fee of P950, or about $19 for the e-Passport. The regular processing period or turn-around time before the applicant can get his or her e-Passport is 20 working days or four weeks. But if you want to get your e-Passport much earlier, you have to pay P1,250 and you can get it after 10 working days or after two weeks.

Romulo takes pride to the fact that our country has one of the lowest-priced e-Passports in the world. There are also more pages available in the new e-Passport at 44 pages compared to the 32 pages of our current machine-readable passports and it’s also valid for five years. The DFA is giving passport applicants the choice between the e-Passport or the MRP currently priced at P500.

The MRP will soon be phased out with the full implementation of e-Passport worldwide. The DFA entertains applications for the e-Passport on appointment basis to prevent long queues, but it is also accepting walk-in applicants.

While this maybe the last trip he would be taking along with President Arroyo, Romulo is particularly happy to have the e-Passport as legacy of the economic diplomacy they pursued together for the Philippines.