A Spanish Resident in the Philippines, 1968

This will be the first of many posts I will publish of scans of the passports I have in my collection. I am quite proud that I have many interesting pieces in my growing collection. This one was among the first I received (that were not issued to relatives or parents).

This passport was for a Spanish citizen who was a resident in Manila. I suppose that he moved to the Philippines and was not born to Spanish subjects here (many of the Spaniards living in the Philippines in 1898 chose to leave the country after the Treaty of Paris was signed and the Philippines handed over to the Americans, but some did stay). He seems to have been a businessman and made very frequent trips to Hong Kong and Japan, although he did apply for a US visa (perhaps as a measure to convince immigrations officers to grant him visas/entry?) and did make a trip to Taiwan once.

Because the endorsements (especially the entry stamps in Hong Kong) were so large, the passport was cancelled even before it expired since there was no more space!

Personally, I do not find the stamps too interesting as they are repetitive, but at least I get to have many examples of Hong Kong, Japan, and Philippine immigration endorsements at that time and get to compare them. Notice how the Philippine entry and exit stamps have no common design and are not uniform. I also have an interesting "story" of a Spanish national living in the Philippines who frequently flew to Hong Kong and Japan on JAL and PAL, not to mention a nice Taiwan visa issued in Manila!