President Rodrigo Roa Duterte delivers one of his campaign
promises - to make the validity of the Philippine passports longer from five(5)
to ten (10) years.
The president today signed Republic Act no. 10928 (RA 10928)
amending Republic Act no. 8239 (RA 8239) or the Philippine Passport Act of
1996.
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| One of his campaign promises-delivered. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte signs Republict Act No. 10928 which amends RA No. 8239 or the Philippine Passport Act of 1996, which extends the validity of the passports from five years to 10 years. (photo credit to Philstar) |
Regular passports issued under RA 10928 will have a validity
of ten (10) years except for individuals
under eighteen (18) years of age, who will still have passports with five-year
validity.
RA 10928 also provides that the issuing authority may limit
the validity to less than 10 years whenever national economic interest or
political stability is at stake.
The implementing rules and regulations of RA 10928 will be
issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs(DFA), which will ensure that all
its provisions will be fully implemented. Also, RA 10928 made it mandatory for
the DFA to implement necessary reforms
on the passport processing system to make it more “"seamless, convenient
and pro-people."
The consolidation of Senate bill 1365 (sponsored on the
floor by Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign
relations, last March and authored by Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto
and Senators Grace Poe, Cynthia Villar, Loren Legarda, Joseph Victor Ejercito,
Sonny Angara, Joel Villanueva and Richard Gordon ) and the House Bill 4767( authored
by, then House Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former veteran
actress and now Batangas Rep. Vilma Santos-Recto) brought about the creation of RA 10928 which
was approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives on May 17 and May
16, of this year respectively.
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