{"id":7156,"date":"2011-12-03T08:20:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-03T08:20:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=7156"},"modified":"2011-12-03T08:20:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-03T08:20:24","slug":"consulate-sees-spike-in-passport-renewals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/consulate-sees-spike-in-passport-renewals\/","title":{"rendered":"Consulate sees spike in passport renewals"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Clarissa David<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>Nearly half the passports issued by the Philippine Consulate General as of November 2011 were applied between the release of the Commonwealth-only transitional worker rule and the expiration of umbrella permits.<\/p>\n<p>Consulate records show that of the 3,611 passports issued from January to Nov. 30, 2011, a total of 1,799 were issued from Sept. 7 to Nov. 27.<\/p>\n<p>The number of passports for September posted the highest at 779, followed by 689 for October and 331 as of Nov. 27.<\/p>\n<p>Records also showed that the number of passports issued spiked in March, which was the scheduled Rota mobile consular services.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe numbers show that a lot of the Filipinos in the CNMI were preparing for CW petitions, H1\/H2 and other visa applications, and also for possible repatriation,\u201d Consul General Medardo Macaraig told Saipan Tribune yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>Macaraig noted the increase even in the number of those who availed of other consular services such as marriage applications because of the requirement to be legally married to enable a foreign worker to petition a spouse or child for CW-2 status; membership with the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration; and requests for repatriation and legal assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Since the release of the final worker rule, the Consulate has already repatriated 13 Filipinos, 15 have yet to be booked for a flight, another 15 are waiting for repatriation funding approval, while seven have yet to officially withdraw through writing their repatriation assistance requests, said Macaraig.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI&#8217;m confident that most of the Filipinos here in the CNMI already have valid passports,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>The Consul General noted, however, that they don&#8217;t expect to see an increase in the number of passport applications by 2012 since scores of Filipinos in the Commonwealth are leaving the islands for good.<\/p>\n<p>Macaraig said the Consulate does not have any records on the number of Filipinos who have left the CNMI since the release of the final worker rule in September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Clarissa David Reporter Nearly half the passports issued by the Philippine Consulate General as&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maharlika"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}