WATCH: Philippines gets more secure, beautiful new passport

Philippine Consul General Paul Raymond Cortes unveils the new design of the e-passport at the Philippine Consulate General in Dubai. Photo by Dhes Handumon

A new "visually-striking and highly-secured" Philippine e-passport will be rolled out in the next 10 days, said Filipino consular officials who unveiled a specimen copy to reporters on Monday.
"There is now greater protection and security for our passport, which used to be notoriously tampered with," said Paul Raymund Cortes, the Philippines' consul-general to Dubai and the northern emirates. "We've added features to make the (Philippines) passport 'untamperable' and not at risk of being duplicated or faked.
"Most likely, those who applied last month - at least some of them - will get the new e-passport which will arrive in the next 10 days," Cortes added.
The Philippines first issued electronic or e-passports back in 2009; prior to that, details of the passport holder were manually written on the document, and covered with a thin transparent film, which made it easy to alter.

"(But) now it will be very difficult to tamper with the pages," said Consul Ferdinand Flores. "We cannot give out the specific security details. What we can say is that aside from the microchip, there are microprints, ethnic-design prints, and UV marks.
"We can also proudly say that we have one of the most beautiful passports available in the world now, something every Filipino can be proud of," Flores said.
Watch video demo of new Philippines passport
A brand, new-look passport
The cost of getting a new e-passport is the same (Dh240), and its validity is still five years. Regular passports are maroon-coloured, while those for diplomatic and government officials are blue and red respectively. Details such as complete name, date of birth, place and date of issuance are also listed in the new e-passport, according to consular officials.
Cortes clarified that the validity of the new e-passport is still only five years, as a new law - to implement the proposal of President Rodrigo Duterte to extend the validity to 10 years - is yet to be passed by Congress.