10-yr passport validity a welcome for Filipinos

“we should always make life easy for them because they are really supporting our economy,” 

 This was the main thrust of every law maker and the Senate as the second reading was past last May 

Authored by 9 senators: Richard Gordon, Cynthia Villar, Ralph Recto, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Loren Legarda, Sonny Angara, Joel Villanueva, Grace Poe, and ,ed led by the chair of the Senate committee on foreign affairs, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano , the Senate pproved on its second reading a bill extending the validity of Philippine passports from the current five years to 10 years.

 It amends Republic Act 8239 or the Philippine Passport Act of 1996.

The bill also seeks to prevent backlogs in the issuance of passports with the extension of its validity.

 This news is a great welcome for most overseas Filipino workers who need not cut the duration of the contracts abroad to attend to the long and tedious process of documentation and extensions.

 A call to action was led by Senator Villar who highlighted That passports of many countries were already valid for 10 years. She cited the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Vietnam and Cambodia, among others.

 A short validity would mean that the traveller will have to renew after a short period of time. She added, that in the Philippines there are many poor people who are working abroad who are applying for passports. So to make life easier for them especially for our OFWs (overseas Filipino workers), who are really supporting our economy, for the information of everybody, the formal remittance of our OFWs are US 25 billion a year and the informal remittance of our OWFs is around another US 25 billion a year so it’s a total of US 50 billion. So we should always make life easy for them because they are really supporting our economy,” she said.

(Image from outoftownblog.com)