The Department of Foreign Affairs is set to open 10 more temporary offsite passport services (TOPS) centers across the country before the end of the year.
“We’re thinking of opening three in the National Capital Region – one in Manila, one in Novaliches and one in Fairview. What we want for the next few TOPS to be opened is that they are located outside NCR to give other applicants the chance to renew their passports nearby,” Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary Senen Mangalile said.
Apart from the three Metro Manila sites, TOPS venues will also open soon in Cebu, Davao City, Iloilo, Pangasinan, Lipa in Batangas, and San Pedro in Laguna.
“So we expect to see about 17 operating before the end of the year and hopefully the Congress could provide us the budget to continue this program,” Mangalile said.
A maximum of 500 slots per TOPS site will be allocated, translating to at least 5,000 applications daily.
Mangalile admitted that all slots in consular offices and the seven existing TOPS sites have already been filled.
“It’s not true that there are no longer appointment slots for 2022. We just have not opened up the slots for October, November, and December,” he said.
He said the slots would be opened in a staggered manner while the DFA fixes its system to prevent so-called “professional appointment setters” from locking and hogging the slots.
The DFA is also working to ease the long lines at its Aseana office where most applicants have been transferred after some consular offices in Metro Manila were hit by a series of COVID-19 outbreaks.
At present, only its office in SM Manila is temporarily closed for disinfection, Mangalile said.
Among others, the DFA is addressing issues with over 17,000 applications that need corrections after applicants made errors in filling up their forms online.
“We are correcting forms submitted towards the end of July until the first week of August. This may last maybe until the middle part of October as one of those correcting these errors tested positive for COVID so the whole team is considered as close contact. We are now employing new personnel to do this,” Mangalile said.
Last year, the agency was only able to release around 1.7 million passports, a significant drop from the more than four million recorded in 2019.