The House committee on foreign affairs is set to investigate the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA)in connection with the alleged unfair guidelines  that would affect small travel agencies.
According to Rep. Rodante Marcoleta of Alagad party-list, the move to bar small travel agencies from providing passport services is unfair.
Marcoleta said he has been receiving more complaints from small travel agencies about the unfairness of the policy, especially after the DFA formalized and issued the new guidelines for travel agency accreditation last month without any consultation.
The new DFA guidelines gave travel agencies only up to the end of the year to offer passport assistance services to the public.
Marcoleta filed House Resolution 2456 on May 20 directing the committee on foreign affairs to conduct the inquiry to get into the bottom of the DFA directive following the complaints from small travel agencies.
At their recent meeting with the congressman, small travel agents complained that the new guidelines for travel agency accreditation issued by the DFA are unfair and discriminate against small travel agencies.
The DFA directive, the small travel agents stressed, also denies the people their right to avail themselves of services from legitimate private enterprises like travel agencies.
“Why would the government deny the people of their right to avail themselves of services from legitimate private enterprises like travel agents? We are paying taxes to the government just like other enterprises,” the travel agents said.
They added passport applicants who do not want to avail themselves of travel agencies’ services are free to go to and personally file their passport application with the DFA.
“However, there are those who come from far provinces or corporate executives or busy people who would rather avail themselves of the services of legitimate travel agencies and are willing to pay for their services. Why deny them of this right?” the travel agents said.
Marcoleta said the DFA directive limited the number of passport applications that travel agencies can help process from now on up to the end of the year to only five percent of the average daily capacity of a particular consular office.
The travel agents called this rule highly discriminatory and denies passport applicants a faster processing of their applications.