Passport bureaucracy
On my birthday a few weeks ago, I forced myself to wake up much earlier than usual. No, it wasn't an attempted lifestyle change or anything like that. A travel agency was handling the renewal of my recently expired passport, and they helpfully scheduled for me, a night owl, to appear at the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) at the ungodly hour of 9 AM... on my freaking birthday. (Thanks a lot, you guys. That was the best birthday gift ever. Now please die.)
I don't remember ever having to make a personal appearance at the DFA to get my passport renewed. Well, it's supposedly a new bureaucratic regulation imposed after 9/11 to ensure that the photos on terrorists' passports match their faces, because yeah, all local terrorists carry authentic Philippine passports.
And boy did the bureaucrats go overboard with the accurate photo thing. The DFA website has a three-page "guidelines on new photo requirements for machine-readable passport." I see that they have trimmed the PDF file down to a neat 850 KB. When I first downloaded the guidelines a few months ago, there were three separate files with a total size of 22.3 MB. Apparently, the morons who run the website have learned about the magic of JPEG compression since then... yay progress.
The document is a bureaucrat's wet dream. Some of the rules are somewhat reasonable, but others are just plain ridiculous. Take this one: "When having their photos taken, applicants may smile. The 'Mona Lisa' smile is recommended." Thank you, dear government, for giving us permission to smile like Mona Lisa. And this one: "Use of earrings for women is allowed, provided earrings are small. For men, the wearing of earrings is not allowed." Unfair! What happened to gender equality?
The rule I loath the most was "both ears of the applicant should be visible." I loath it because I have longish hair that covers both ears. If I were to change my hairstyle just for the passport picture, would I have to show my ears to pass airport inspection each time I travel? That's silly.
The rule has a loophole though: "It is all right if the ears of a Muslim applicant or an applicant who is a member of a Religious Order (nun) is not visible in the photograph." (Did you catch the wrong subject-verb agreement? "Ears is not visible," heh.) Unfortunately, I'm neither a Muslim nor a nun, so I had to pull my hair back behind my ears when I had my photo taken a few days before my DFA appointment. Doing so made me look like a dork... a gay dork. In retaliation, I refused to do a "Mona Lisa smile" for the camera. That in hindsight wasn't the best idea. I'm now doomed to look like an angry gay dork on my passport for the next few years. Yay me.
The third page of the document is full of sample photos that were rejected according to the guidelines (probably used without the consent of the poor rejected people in the pictures). Here are some of my favorites. See if you can guess why they were rejected.
Easy? Here are the answers.
Photo #1: hair across the eyebrow/eye area. Yeah, that strand of hair made her totally unrecognizable.
Photo #2: unnatural skin tone. Really? How do you know that's not his natural skin tone?
Photo #3: uneven skin color. Really? She looks fine to me.
Photo #4: yellowish skin tone. As an ethnic Chinese, I have this to say: Fuck you! I didn't choose to be born with yellowish skin! Racists pigs!
So would my photo be rejected? Judgment Day soon came along. I rushed my sleepy ass out the door at 8:30 AM on my freaking birthday to make the long drive to the DFA. Having never been there before, I promptly got lost. It was almost 10 when I finally found the shithole. No, it really was a shithole. The entrance to the passport renewal area was in a dark and stinky back alley, with a crowd of stinky people spilling out into the street.
Fortunately for me, my mother and my sister were there since 8, and they saved me a spot near the head of the queue. I usually have strong queuing ethics, but on this particularly day, I didn't care. I pushed my way through the crowd, ignoring the hateful stares. It was my birthday, and I deserved a break.
I stepped up to the window. The guy who was supposed to verify my identity barely glanced up at me and made me sign a form that I didn't bother to read. An angry old man behind a table then grabbed my hands, pushed my thumbs onto a dirty purple inkpad, then pressed them against boxes on the form. Um, I could have done that myself, but thanks for the hand holding.
The whole process took five minutes, and it only took that long because my mom kept peppering the bureaucrats with annoying questions about proper procedure for this and that. I briefly wondered if my mom has OCD and if it's hereditary.
Anyway, I'm glad that the whole thing is over with. As a reward for my efforts, I received a shiny new machine-readable passport with a horribly ugly picture a few days later. I know I should be ecstatic (oh thank you thank you, DFA), but I find myself dreading the day five years from now (I think... my passport is locked up in my drawer and I'm too lazy to check) when I'll have to do this shit all over again.
Yay!
It's been some time since I last read something long and interesting! You're putting me in the writing mood again hehe.
Whoa that 'Mona Lisa' sentence sounds like something you'd only find in a blog (like CM), not some official gov document. Haha poor rejected people :P Luckily you didn't join the merry list. That would be real funny. An angry gay dork.
Photo #5: Did not follow the Mona Lisa smile rule.
Now it's your turn
to update your blog :-P Go go go!
Wow!
An official request for a Mona Lisa smile. How wonderfully artistic of them. They should've used art terms to define the rest of the document!
picture 1 - unnecessarily asymmetrical
picture 2 - unrealistic skin palette
picture 3 - chiaruscuro
picture 4 - fugly
Hahaha
You're so mean :-P And "fugly" is an art term? Yay! I know an art term!
I fully blame my extra mean comment...
On my crap vacation! I'll be all sugar and spice now that I'm back in civilized society. Promise. :D
It's okay
as long as the meanness isn't directed at me :-P
shoot
fuck photo rules
Stupid government bureaucracy...
always making things more complicated than they have to be.
congratulation..
for a quick renewal of your passport. your experience in going thru a government red tape in just five minutes ( not forgetting that your mom and sister were out there, under the heat of the sun , standing in a long line for two torturing hours in place of you) is a testament that our government services have move a step forward in giving efficient and convenient service to the public, NOT.
Have you notice that the public are being levied with all sorts of Government fees in the guise as " REQUIRENMENTS" like say, birth certificate fee, marriage certificate fee, death certificate fee, NBI clearance fee , driver's licences fee, urine test fees, OFW working aboard proccessing fees, land title fees, airport terminal fee, landing fee, parking fees, right of way fees and all others-you-know-for-what?-fees. Well, it all comes down to one purpose - its a legal way to rob poor JUAN DE LA CRUZ.
The government ( Philippine to be exact) with the connivance of our dear TONGgressmen and senaTONGs , are working hard night and day to come up with new laws and regulations which are suppose to improve and protect the lives of every FILIPINO citizens. The downside is every FILIPINO have to pay for these regulations and expect to pay more of these becuase every year new laws and regulations are created. It would have been bearable if its that easy to just pay the fees and done with it, but no, these sadistic government regulators wants to earn every peso the hard way by giving hell to FILIPINO fee payees.
I remember a pinoychicken use to say ( I think thats what he said): "Our government loves us to death."
BTW,
the last picture seems to be over expose. But why is the face glowing? is it because the subject is from out of this world or was she a ghost? look at the way it stare at you. now, I am scared. I better surf for a happier site. a porn site will do. bye
Have you considered
the possibility that she's just plain fugly and has hepatitis? :-P
Hahaha
What a long rant :-P But I do agree with a lot of what you said.
oh fuck! my passport is
oh fuck! my passport is expiring in a few months!
Heh
Good luck :-P And blog about it.
i think it's the same...
the rules... i think the only thing that they changed was the blue background. same pic rules like you can smile but teeth aren't supposed to be showing, both ears should be visible and you should be wearing a collared top. of course top.
i think it's better if you go to DFA in the afternoon near closing time cos the queues are shorter. everybody wants to go early in the morning cos they want to finish early as well, but since everybody's thinking the same way, it's useless. i went there after my classes and it didn't take me an hour, seriously.
once you get your new passport i think it's worth it. It makes traveling very easy cos airports abroad have this self or auto-check-in especially in cool airlines, not in PAL btw. No need of airline personnel to check in your luggage, just swipe it in, then click click click!
Yeah,
it didn't take me an hour either :-D But still, the travel time to and from the DFA... boo.
Auto check-in is cool, but it saves like what, 5 minutes? I would have to travel abroad 30 times in the next 5 years to make up for the time I spent on the passport renewal thing... not likely to happen.
You see, only terrorists
You see, only terrorists have hair across the eyebrow/eye area in passport photos. That's why it's absolutely imperative to not have hair across the eyebrow/eye area.
Oh my god!
I'm a terrorist! I need to go blow some shit up now.
Also, I'd tap the girl with
Also, I'd tap the girl with uneven skin tone.
If she's not a terrorist.
I'd tap that too
I don't care if she's a terrorist.
This is freaking
This is freaking hilarious!!
"The 'Mona Lisa' smile is recommended."
I guess the government just has to cover every scenario possible just in case shit happens ya know. =0
Stupid government
Not everyone can do the Mona Lisa smile :-(
Editing the photos is
Editing the photos is actually also forbidden. But the photographer guy photoshopped my face so much, hah, so I don't know how mine got through.
Oh no!
You violated the rules! Terrorist! You should have posted that comment anonymously :-P
was mona lisa even smiling in the painting?
..cant they just say 'dont smile but look happy?' Lolz!
Hmm
I guess Mona Lisa looks a bit constipated.
good luck me...
yikes!
This reminds me to get my feet back in obtaining my passport.And this is really funny...and true:)
Ant they'll probably
change the rules up soon. Bureaucrats like to do that.
me thinks
i think mona lisa's smile says 'hey i'm gay! i'm a guy dressed in drag! yay me morons!'
Hmm
Mona Lisa does look like a gay guy in drag.
Mr Bean does a good Mona Lisa smile
Photo taken from first result in Google images search
(better acknowledge the source, we can't afford to settle a lawsuit)
Ack
I didn't think it's possible to make Mona Lisa uglier.
Jeez
I don't wanna show my ears!
I have a friend whose passport picture has been rejected three times and she got so pissed she just decided she won't get a passport.
Not to be generalizing or anything, but I don't know why government offices make things hard for the people---you have to go to this line, then that line, then pay this, and oooh, some teeny tiny thing is wrong and you have to go back here and there...
Like, after going back to the SSS office for the third time to apply for that stinking SSS ID, I went home crying in absolute frustration. Hmmmm, I'll write about that.
Yes,
bureaucrats like to make things needlessly inefficient because that's how they derive their power.
And tell your friend to try Island Photo. The people there seemed to know what they were doing. They have branches in various malls I think.
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