PH support office to issue 3,000-plus new passports
Since the end of May, the Philippine Honorary Consul-CNMI Support Office has been issuing Philippine passports in batches and is expected to issue a total of over 3,000.
The office first received around 1,900 passports three weeks ago and received 730 more lately. The office expects to receive around 400 passports next week.
According to an honorary consulate staff, the incoming passports are from the batch of passport applications that were processed the last time the Philippine Consulate General-Guam conducted a mobile consular outreach on Saipan from March 18 to April 11.
Saipan Tribune earlier reported that some 1,500 additional passport applications were submitted to the Saipan honorary consulate office, and that further processing requires the presence of the Philippine Consulate General-Guam, as it owns the biometric equipment that are essential to the application process. Plans of another mobile consular outreach this year from June 29 to July 16 are still being discussed.
