Cureless

Last December, I sought the service of Pilipinas Teleserve Inc. in getting my passport renewed. It expired October of last year and I needed it since it’s one of the few government-issued ID’s I own. Upon reading the terms on the application form, I understood that DFA has revised some processes, one which is the requirement for “Personal Appearance” when applying or renewing the passport.

That time, I was on probation in my job. I certainly can’t afford to lose a day’s worth of pay. I saw that “Personal Appearance” can be done of Saturdays (see picture). And this is the primary reason why I applied for the passport online.

At first, I was impressed by their service. They called me up one Sunday and confirmed about the pick-up date for the requirements. Their courier got my papers and payment from the office and I thought everything was fine.

Saturday came, Fluffy and I went to the DFA. It was quite surprising that there weren’t a lot of people that day. We thought we could get through the process without a glitch. A coordinator from Pilipinas Teleserve came and informed us they no longer process passports on Saturdays.

I had no choice but to forgo one day at work. But I had to wait before I become a “regular” employee.

Several weeks passed, I have yet to re-schedule my “Personal Appearance”. Unfortunately, their 24/7 call assistance isn’t as reliable as they seemed when they confirmed the pickup of my documents (and money).

Finally, one weekday at the office, I got to re-schedule it. March 17 (last Monday) was the date. I took a leave from the office and went to DFA before 8 a.m.

The coordinators from Pilipinas Teleserve were courteous enough to lead us to where the other customers were waiting for the DFA personnel and get through with their “Personal Appearance”. One elderly customer from Laguna talked to me about how disappointed she is of the service. They left home at 5:30, arrived at DFA at around 7 and what they got from paying extra bucks for a faster passport transaction was a waiting line?

The wait wasn’t much of a burden for me. Remember that I took a day off just for this. The sad thing was the people who were supposed to process our papers were late. And I think that’s what most of the customers were mumbling about.

Not more than 30 minutes later, my turn came but there’s one problem, my pictures were invalid. I had to pay 150PhP for another set of passport-size pictures, twice the price of normal studio-taken counterpart.

I was all done an hour later. I could’ve decided to go back to the office but I already filed for a day to be taken from my time-bank.

In the end, my online application turned out as if I went through the normal process.

Well, fortunately, I was feeling a little sunny that day.