Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano wants printing contractor APO Production Unit to shoulder all the necessary expenses in improving the production and delivery of passports to the public even if the additional requirements are not stipulated in their agreement.
Cayetano on Friday announced that the Department of Foreign Affairs will disperse at least four mobile passport processing trucks in the National Capital Region to help “de-clog” its consular offices of the big volume of passport applicants.
He also said the DFA is also waiting for the importation of new printing machines to backstop the APO production plant in Batangas.
Even in the absence of explicit provisions in the DFA-APO passport production agreement signed in 2014, all these improvements and additional requirements to improve passport production shall be “at the expense of APO,” according to the Foreign Affairs chief. (Roy C. Mabasa)
