Foreigner: Why is it that Filipinos spend more than they can afford? You guys always change your cell phones, buy the latest gadgets, shop for expensive clothes, do hair rebonding, etc! There’s this kabayan in my brother’s workplace and she always borrows money from everyone—and it’s just a couple of days after pay day!

Me: You know, back in the Philippines, you guys are well known for lending money with bloated interest; we call it 5-6. What’s even sadder is that you lend the money to those you very well know won’t be able to pay you back on time, so the debt just goes up and up until these poor people can pay you no more. Then you start taking away all their house appliances… (thinks) And people say you’re not the best smelling lot around either.

Foreigner: Oh! (pauses) Let’s finish our lunch.

Me: Okay.

The Moral of the Story: Stereotyping stinks. ;P

• Application form, which you can obtain online at http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=49&Itemid=131 or from the DFA. This form is free. All you need to do is fill it out truthfully and legibly.
• Green passport
• Photocopy of green passport’s inside and back cover, amendment pages (or pages 1, 2, 3), and pages showing latest Bureau of Immigration departure and arrival stamps (Caution: Looking for the right stamps may be a little bit tricky if you’ve overused your passport—going everywhere until your passport ran out of space—and have gone to countries where immigration officials use characters/alphabet other than those of the English lingo, e.g. Middle East.)
• Three colored passport size photos, which should have been taken recently. Trust Kodak to take the right photos. But if you’re still in doubt, check out the photos that WON’T be allowed on http://www.philippine-embassy.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=23.

• Application form, which you can obtain online at http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=49&Itemid=131 or from the DFA. This form is free. All you need to do is fill it out truthfully and legibly.
• Brown passport
• Photocopy of brown passport’s amendment pages (or pages 1, 2, 3) and pages showing latest Bureau of Immigration departure and arrival stamps (Caution: Looking for the right stamps may be a little bit tricky if you’ve overused your passport—going everywhere until your passport ran out of space—and have gone to countries where immigration officials use characters/alphabet other than those of the English lingo, e.g. Middle East.)
• Three colored passport size photos, which should have been taken recently. Trust Kodak to take the right photos. But if you’re still in doubt, check out the photos that WON’T be allowed on http://www.philippine-embassy.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=23.
• Supporting documents with complete middle name – NBI clearance for travel purposes, or two valid IDs such as SSS, PRC, BIR (all should be digitized), driver’s license, senior citizen’s ID, Voter’s ID, original school ID (for students only)

• Application form, which you can obtain online at http://dfa.gov.ph/main/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=49&Itemid=131 or from the DFA. This form is free. All you need to do is fill it out truthfully and legibly.
• NSO-certified Birth Certificate, which you can apply for online at https://www.ecensus.com.ph for PhP315. Payment already includes delivery to your specified address and processing takes three to five working days. If you’ve got nothing to do for a whole day, you can also go to National Statistics offices and spend just PhP180. Census Serbilis Centers can be found on http://www.census.gov.ph/data/civilreg/serbilis_centers.html.
• Three colored passport size photos, which should have been taken recently. Trust Kodak to take the right photos. But if you’re still in doubt, check out the photos that WON’T be allowed on http://www.philippine-embassy.org.sg/index.cfm?GPID=23.
• NBI clearance for travel purposes, or two valid IDs such as SSS, PRC, BIR (all should be digitized), driver’s license, senior citizen’s ID, Voter’s ID, original school ID (for students only)

Before making an online appointment, it’s best that you’ve already completed all passport requirements. Think of it as saving yourself from unnecessarily going through Panic mode.

Some people are very much vulnerable to this, believe me. And Panic=Stress.

In case you don’t know, everyone—first-time passport applicants and those who need to just renew their passports—now needs to do a personal appearance at the DFA for info encoding and thumb marking. So you have to be prepared to beat twice as many people, unlike in the olden times when those for passport renewal didn’t have to go the DFA, in order to finish the grueling procedure as early as possible.

Now, if you want to come out of the building still smelling cologne fresh and looking like you really had taken a bath, make sure you set up an online appointment with the DFA people whether you’d like to obtain a Machine Readable Passport (MRP) or an Electronic Passport (e-Passport). Visit http://dfa.gov.ph/ and click on the Make an Appointment link found in the upper right bar.

But my fellow Filipino travelers, here’s the bottom line: we do have options besides getting up early, falling in kilometric lines, and being robbed of cash and dignity by DFA employee wannabes. And that’s either through online or phone appointment system, which would save you the hassle of going through passport application/renewal the regular way (again…getting up early, falling in kilometric lines, and being robbed of cash and dignity by DFA employee wannabes). Thought you’d never see the day, huh?

These key terms should come in handy:

• Machine Readable Passport (MRP)

• Electronic Passport (e-Passport)

• DFA Express Passport

• Telephone Passport Express

-         Wake up early just so you’d be the first in the DFA queue. It’s a basic human need and a universal rule to enjoy eight hours (or more) of unperturbed sleep.

-         Be the first in the DFA queue because you’d rather not appear too excited acquiring your first passport. Better let your fully charged digicam cover your fingerprinting moment.

-         Get stuck in looooong queues alongside sweaty and noisy people. Plus, you don’t want overfriendly people interviewing you why, of all things to do, you decided on having a passport.

-         Fall victim to scammers who’d intimidate/threaten/harass you into paying for their affidavit/photography services because your surname on your birth certificate doesn’t have the same font as your ID’s and because you have two hair strands littered on your forehead in your latest Kodak-taken passport photos.

-         Buy an insanely overpriced PhP160 passport jacket just to flee from the hawkers at DFA. And find out later on that they’re worth only PhP20, which you can still probably cut down to PhP10-15 if you haggle.

BUT don’t allow yourself to be the world’s smelly and filthy vagabond just for the sake of traveling light—it’ll never be a valid excuse, sorry.

Learn to value the wonder of sachets. Those teeny-weeny shiny packs of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, powder, toothpaste, etc. priced at PhP5 or less, which you can easily put in the tiniest pocket of your backpack/gym bag/luggage–and not even an added microgram! (Oh, yeah, I’m bluffing in the last part, you can tell.)

A sachet of shampoo, conditioner, lotion, powder, toothpaste, etc. a day keeps the flies away.