typographical error in a Philippine passport

[ergh14]

Hi, I am new here and I'm sorry if this question have been raised before.

Anyway, the Canadian embassy already gave us our PR visa. They however, called us prior to the stamping of the visa and mentioned that one of my dependent's passport information, particularly the birth place has a typographical error. To cut the story short, they already returned our passports with the PR visa for all family members.

The thing is, we are worried if the immigration officer on either side would question this. Appreciate your advice on this.

Note that all family members have a machine readable passports while my son has the latest electronic passport (the e-passport). His birth place should be MALOLOS, BULACAN but the one printed in the info page is MALOLO BULACAN.

 

[wilson]

Hi, Ergh,

If your passport office can make a correction of the error on the passport it would be fine. I don't know what is the procedure for it in Philippines but usually in most of other countries, such error will be corrected without much delay.

If not possible now, I suggest to leave the matter now because the place of birth with error is for for one letter missing on the village name ( or what ever it may be ) and the Province is correct. Therefore it would not be taken as a serious problem with immigration. Any one may check, if required, whether the place of birth is Philippines or not. After you settle down in Canada you can contact your Philippine Embassy/Consulate in Canada and ask them what is the remedy.

 

[ergh14]

Thank you very much wilson.

We have actually just raised this issue with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) here in the Philippines and one of the staff there said that we need to update it. We were asking if they can just annotate the passport or certify that the passport is valid and perfectly fine but to cut the story short, they just asked us to reprocess the passport.

We just don't want to go through all the hassles and waiting for the passport as well as the reprinting of the Canadian visa. Also, we are worried if there are some criminals within the department that may tamper, copy or do something else to the attached visa. Further, what really tics us is that we have to pay for the reprocessing of the passport where we know that it is THEIR fault for having it spelled incorrectly. Malolos, Bulacan is quite known in the Philippines as the place has some historical significance here.

Anyway, what we are planning to do is to consult a lawyer and ask for an affidavit that the birth place of my son is actually Malolos, Bulacan and not Malolo Bulacan.

Appreciate any other thoughts on this.

 

[wilson]

Hi ergh,

Understands the problem. For this simple error by the PP office, I thought they can correct it with a note on another page of the passport to read as : birth place :MALOLOS, BULACAN. with the seal and sign of the Passport Officer. It is done by some PP offices and embassies. straight away within a hour or two after requesting for correction. I agree with you that an affidavit as you suggested would work.

 

[ergh14]

hi wilson, yes, we are expecting the same - i.e., that the passport officer will just write it in the amendments page and indicate the correct birth place with there official stamp and/or seal or whatever they need to certify that the amendment indicated comes from their office.

actually, the passport officer in charge that time told us that since the passport is already the e-passport (the electronic passport) amendments are no longer acceptable. I find this weird as the amendment page is still in that passport.

regards,
ergh

 

[ergh14]

i recently got a PM from somebody but for some reason I can't reply to that PM. Anyway, I guess to close this thread and to answer her question, i'll write here what happened:

around Oct 2011 we went to DFA to ask for amendment. the first guy we approached said that we really need to apply for a new passport since the Philippines' DFA now uses e-passports and there is no other option. we opt not to apply for a new passport on that day.

sometime in Dec 2011, we went back and ask again for ammendment, almost the same answer but the lady we asked tried to escalate the question to her supervisor and they decided that an ammendment will do. they just stamped the passport with an amendment stamp and wrote a note that the birthplace should read: MALOLOS, BULACAN. problem solved... lesson learned: appeal for pity - that day was a very busy one. we were ready to apply for a new passport so we brought with us my son who has an exam the following day. my wife is teaching him his lessons while waiting so we guess they felt bad for us.

anyway, i hope this story helps to you guys with similar problem.

 

[hazeltor]

Hi ergh14... are you in Canada Now?