And we thought the green Philippine passport is valid until its expiration date.
In January 2009, we wrote that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed that the old, green passports can still be used by Filipinos until the validity date written on the passport.Says the official DFA statement on their website:
All green passports (non-machine readable passports) will be valid until the stated date of expiry.
But a news report on GMANews.tv about Philippine ePassports said manually scripted passports (i.e., the green passports) are valid only until April 2010.
Says the GMA News article:
[The DFA] clarified that machine-readable passports will remain valid until their expiration date. On the other hand, manually scripted passports will no longer be recognized starting April 10, 2010.
Which is which?
I hope the DFA issues a final statement regarding this. My green passport will expire in August 2011 and if this passport will no longer be valid by next year, then I should get a new one ASAP.
Update (January 2014): Green, Maroon MRP Philippine passports valid only until 2015
