Hubby and I took a day off from work today to renew our passports in the embassy.  As expected, the consular office is jampacked with my fellow citizens who mostly were there to renew their travel documents.  Without wasting any time, as soon as we had secured the forms, filled up, we patiently joined others in a snail paced queue.  The processing took hours, from the queue to the verification counter, to cashier to the encoding room where you are photographed after your data are encoded in their computer.   We finished almost noon time and I was sure glad that the lady still accommodated me because she too was going to leave for her lunch break.

If I remember it right, it was year 2008 when the new Machine Readable Passport (MRP) was implemented.  The new e-passports they said has  special features that includes hidden encoded images and others to prevent tampering.

Well, that was a  welcome change!