The Department of Foreign Affairs and the National Privacy Commission have rescheduled the fact-finding inquiry into the passport mess.
READ: NPC probes passport snafu; DFA flip-flops
Director Al Mandal of the DFA Law Division formally conveyed the agency’s request to postpone the supposed meeting on Wednesday for another 10 days, since there is an ongoing internal probe into the matter.
The NPC, citing “urgency” in the issue, only granted the DFA a five-day extension.
When asked about its ongoing probe, Mandal declined to comment and noted the agency is still consulting different offices concerned.
“We would like to be certain that once we appear, our information is complete. We owe it to the public that we have the full information laid down,” he said.
In a letter delivered by Mandal to the privacy commission, DFA Data Privacy Officer Medardo Macaraig clarified that the passport holders’ data stored by the previous printer are intact and still in the custody of the agency and the APO Production Unit Inc., the current passport maker.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. earlier said that the previous contractor, a French company, had “made off” with the data of passport holders after its contract was terminated early. He later retracted this statement and said the data was not taken, but “made inaccessible.”
Meanwhile, House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ruled out a congressional inquiry into the passport mess, saying she saw no new legislation coming out of such a probe.
“What legislation can we introduce in a few months?” Arroyo asked.
Instead of a congressional inquiry, Arroyo said, the House may invite officials of the DFA to brief lawmakers on the issue.
In a series of posts on his Twitter account, Locsin hinted that a crooked passport deal closed during the Aquino administration was to blame for the passport mess, and said the DFA needed to rebuild its database.
On Monday, the Palace said requiring people to provide birth certificates when renewing their passports, as the DFA was doing, was an unnecessary burden and “too cumbersome.”
Locsin has since done away with the birth certificate requirement. With PNA
READ: DFA allays fears over data 'theft'