At last, I’m finally set–well, almost! I just applied for a new Philippine Passport last week. Passport application wasn’t so hard on my part, but getting the requirements needed (stressing the NBI Clearancehere) was.

In hindsight, I believe it took me almost a month to do the whole process. It was supposed to be a bit easy, but going from place to place, coupled with queuing amidst long lines made it arduous on my part.

Getting an NSO-certified birth certificate is easy as pie. All I did was to simply call the hotline and request for a certified copy of my birth certificate, paid it via bank, and then wait for it to be delivered. As far as I remember, it took like a couple of days before it got delivered.

Getting an NBI clearance was a bit of hellish for me. My name has a dash (-) in it, which is considered a special character. Whenever a name has a special character in it, it is always, and will be, considered a “hit”. For those people like me who used to apply one in selected satellite offices, it’d take some time before it is released–say two grueling weeks! That’s why, it took me some time before I finally got mine. Lesson learned: keep in mind to get it at the main office in Carriedo. It’s much quicker there–like less than an hour and it’s done–with or without hits!

Finally, passport application processing within a day takes a toll in time (and effort). Only the first 500 applicants are entertained to do everything in one sweep within the day. It’s recommended to go to the DFA office as early as 4:00 am (up to 5am tops) should you want to be included in that first 500. This is something I can hardly do, considering my mid-shift schedule.

Since I got there half-day, the latter part of the process was scheduled after two days. The latter requires personal appearance, then payment and encoding follows. I opted for expedite processing, which is way quicker. And so, after buckets of sweat and miles of traveling (and trudging), my passport is set to be released after a week!

Erm, so next in line is the Visa Application (Shengen). Ha-ha, to think this kind of adventure ain’t over yet!