FOREIGN Affairs
Undersecretary Rafael Seguis on Sunday said the department will no
longer allow travel agencies to assist e-passport applicants.
Seguis
said the decision to terminate the contracts of at least 551 accredited
travel agencies is not meant “to discriminate against such
establishments” but is instead aimed at saving the public extra costs
for passport applications.
“We
would like to make it clear that the directive we issued in May as well
as the latest guidelines allowing accredited travel agencies to
transact with us only until the end of the year are not intended to
drive travel agencies out of business,” Seguis said in a statement.
“In
fact, the guidelines do not prevent travel agencies from assisting
those who are willing and have the means to avail themselves of the
services they offer. The guidelines are intended to allow ordinary
passport applicants to enjoy the same special treatment travel agency
clients enjoy but at no extra cost to them.”
The
department has been establishing passport processing centers in key
shopping malls in Metro Manila, as well as cities in the Visayas and
Mindanao under public-private partnership scheme to ease passport
application nationwide.
Seguis
said travel agencies have long benefited from the special privileges
that allowed them to “accept, preprocess and until the recent
introduction of the electronic passport, even file applications on
behalf of their clients.”
He
said applicants being assisted by travel agencies need to spend P1,800
to P7,000 for the services rendered by such establishements.
But
he said that of the amount, the Department of Foreign Affairs only
collects P1,200 for expedited processing—the same amount paid by
ordinary passport applicants for the same expedited processing and the
P500 annual accreditation fee collected from each of the 551 accredited
travel agencies.
Seguis
said ordinary applicants who cannot afford to pay for the travel agents
are made to queue for their passport applications as early as midnight
and wait in line for hours before they could be served.
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