Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Dapat Flat Affect sa DFA

Claiming of passport has never been this fast....or so we thought. We arrived in San Fernando around 1:30pm and were greeted by closed gates but lotsa peeps outside. Nasaraduhan na ata kami ng pinto ni San Pedro. It was like applying for a new passport, i.e., a horrible queue plus the scorching sun above us. The thing is we were outside the building just like the scenario before at NBI Taft or as if we were lining up to try our stake at a lotto branch. If the guaranteed price would be P135M, ok na kahit pumila pa ko hanggang gabi. But that was not the case. A pugon even managed to light a cigarette. Walang pakundangan!

Maybe there were 40+ people ahead of me and the movement was soooo sluggish. I overheard someone saying that the passports weren't there yet or they were at the point of arranging them still. Haay..sana tsismis lang ito.

Then suddenly the line proceeded forward, and this girl announced that we would have to enter the building by batch with a 10-15 minute interval. Grrr...pahirapan pala ang pagclaim. Had we known much earlier that agencies have started assisting with the processing kahit anong higpit ng DFA na dapat personal appearance dahil may fingerprinting involved, we could have chosen that option. Doble lang naman ang halaga ng processing fee pero minus naman the pagod, init, at sakit ng ulo.

So my turn came to go in. 10 minutes had passed then...Tadaaaaa.!!! At last! The passports are with me now. Nothing incredible really. And walang microchip nor a fingerprint visible. O baka naman invisible to the naked eye ito, nasa gitna ng fibers nung papel na mukhang nalaminate lamang.

brown passport (for a little brown American?)
look to the left, look to the right...may mukha ka!

yoohoo....ako ang iyong konsensya!!

Anyways, I consumed a total of 2 hours waiting time and 10ml of sweat. Dapat ang sinabi nila, passport release time would be a 1 to 5 hour wait, hindi between 1 to 5pm. Haaay...tapos walang Q.C., kasi nalimutan nilang alisin yung sticker note sa likod ng passport ni Kimi na dapat tanggalin bago i-release ito. *sigh*

Stick-O!

Ngunit, datapwat...di naman uminit ulo ko this time. Himala! Hmmm...mukhang unti-unti ko ng natutupad talaga ang New Year's res ko.

Don't wanna ruin my day that's it. At least, the entire time became fruitful...

..I was able to compose this post while in line. *wink*

PS: Sabi nga ni Sommer, "Welcome to the Philippines!"

2 comments:

The Nashman said...

you means I can't just submit my old passport to a travel agency tapos sila na bahala lahat??

En said...

i'm not sure..perhaps you may, may schedule ng personal appearance lang siguro. if you apply at the embahada there, i think there wouldnt be any problem..
alam mo naman dito, madaming aberya at rason lalo na kung di nila maproduce on the release day itself considering pina-rush pa ito.