Former DFA chief confident Locsin will solve passport mess

MANILA, Philippines — Former foreign affairs secretary Albert del Rosario believes Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. will be able to resolve the passport mess.

 “I have a high measure of respect for Secretary Locsin’s judgment so I will refuse to comment on his early findings concerning the passport challenges,” Del Rosario said in a statement yesterday.

Del Rosario was Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) secretary from 2011 to 2016.

“It has been several years since I left the department and much appears to have happened since then,” he said.

For now, Del Rosario said, the public should be left to judge the level of efficiency on passport issuances during his period of responsibility.

“I know that, sooner than later, our secretary of foreign affairs will be successful in correcting the current passport problems to the total satisfaction of all our people,” he said.

Del Rosario also urged the public to “manifest our confidence in” Locsin.

For her part, Vice President Leni Robredo urged yesterday the government to file charges against the former contractor of the DFA for allegedly taking away all the passport applicants’ data after its contract was terminated.

The Vice President also raised strong concern over the supposed data breach that hit the DFA.

“This is horrible and scary,” Robredo said in her weekly radio show, BISErbisyong Leni over radio station dzXL radio.

“It only means that (the contractor) has access to all our data,” she added.

In a Twitter post on Jan. 9, Locsin revealed that a passport production contractor, whose services the government had terminated, allegedly “made off” with the data.

Robredo agreed with Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, her party-mate in the Liberal Party, that cases must be filed against the former service contractor, “to compel that company” to return the data.