Passport renewals may soon be on first-come, first-served basis

Representatives of the Philippine Consulate General in Guam who are on island for their fourth mobile consular mission this year are thinking of changing the process for passport renewals.

The Philippine Consulate in Guam started their fourth consular mobile mission in the CNMI this year. They will stay on Saipan until Friday and move on to Tinian for the weekend. (Frauleine S. Villanueva)

According to Consul Edgar Auxilian, some of those who were scheduled for biometrics capturing as part of the passporting process didn’t show up for the first day of their mission yesterday.

One hundred and twenty individuals were scheduled for the first day of the mobile mission but only 89 showed up at the Mt. Carmel Social Hall.

“We’re discussing that, for the next visit, it will be on a first-come, first-served basis, not on a pre-encoded or scheduled basis because there are those who register but do not come. It clogs up our system and deprives others,” Auxilian told Saipan Tribune.

Despite this, Auxilian said they will still accommodate those who didn’t show up for their schedule.

In lieu of those who missed their appointments yesterday, they were able to process others who either have later schedules or didn’t have schedules at all.

On Saipan, 360 individuals are scheduled for the three-day mission, which will end on Friday. The mobile mission will move to Tinian on Saturday to process about 90 passport applications there as well as extend other consular services.

In addition to passport processing, the team was able to register 64 new voters and extend the validity of 36 passports.

They also continue to distribute passports that are now available for pickup as well as some voter IDs that have not been claimed yet.

“We encourage those who have not yet received their voter IDs to check and claim their IDs. We also want to remind those who want to be overseas voters to take advantage of our presence here,” Auxilian said.

OWWA membership
After almost a year of absence, a representative of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration was finally able to visit the CNMI.

According to OWWA representative Rey Tayag, he was able to process close to 200 OWWA memberships on the first day.

Tayag encourages overseas Filipino workers to become a member or renew their membership.

Tayag will also be going to Tinian over the weekend, and possibly also to Rota even if the consular mission is not heading there this time.

“We only come here once a year so I encourage them to grab the opportunity so that they can have social protection. If something happens, they can have benefits, as well as avail of other programs and services,” Tayag said.