A Chinoy Student's Travels, 1967

Here is a passport that I have been wanting to have for quite some time now. It is not very easy to find Philippine passports issued before the 1970s not only because not many people were issued passports, but also because many are kept by the bearers' families long after they are gone. Unlike in most Western societies when the personal effects of someone who has passed away are sold off in estate auctions, given away, or simply dumped in the garbage, Filipinos tend to keep them as remembrances of their departed loved ones. Also, the fact that your predecessor was issued (and used) a passport in the olden days is a sign of affluence and one would certainly like to hold onto that.

That is why I jumped at the opportunity to nab this passport when I saw it on eBay. Perhaps some other collectors out there also have a gap in their Philippine collection as the bids for this old thing were very high, especially considering that this is a damaged passport (it was wet and it seems a rat or some termites ate off part of the edges) and the visas and stamps inside are not very interesting - there aren't even any revenue stamps!

Nonetheless, I certainly wouldn't let this big fish get away! And so I am proud to present it here.

This passport belonged to a Chinese Filipino (Chinoy) student born in Manila and living in Pasay City at the time. What is interesting is that the person to contact in case of an emergency lived in Cebu, so I wonder if his family was originally from there and not Manila. This young man travelled to Japan and the United States on this passport. Surprisingly, he spent only a few days in each country on both trips. Was he there for academic purposes? For a conference or a contest, perhaps?

An interesting stamp from his Japan trip is one that indicates that he exchanged $19.05 at the Haneda Airport Exchange Office of Mitsubishi Bank on 19 Dec 67, the day he left on his flight back to Manila. I am guessing he thought it would be wiser to exchange his Japanese Yen into USD dollars in Tokyo rather than exchange then into Philippine Pesos upon his return to Manila. Perhaps the exchange rate for the Yen was bad back home?

His port of entry for his US trip is Honolulu, but I think it was just a stop-over on his way to San Francisco as his Philippine departure stamp indicates "SFO" as the destination. Because the flight was long-haul, most planes at the time (no jets yet!) would stop over in Hawaii and/or Guam on their way to the mainland.

The passport itself is very similar to US passports issued at the time. Like its contemporaries from the US, the Philippine passports had windows on the covers to show the passport numbers indicated inside. There are also spaces for the bearer's address as well as the address of an emergency contact in the same area: on the inside of the front cover. The layout of the information pages are also similar to those of US passports in the 1940s (the Philippines gained independence from the US in 1945) and the perfin on the upper right that reads "DFA" (for Department of Foreign Affairs) is similar to the perfin on the US passports at the time which read "USA."

My First Three Passports

Here are the first three US passports I had before the current e-Passport. I just want to show the evolution of the passport data page since 1991, when my first passport was issued. How I wish I could have applied for one of the commemorative green Benjamin Franklin passports that the Department of State issued in between 1992 and 1993 to celebrate 200 years of US Consular Affairs!

This first passport had a purple theme to it. It was very minimalist, which I like about it. The typeface used for the data is also reminiscent of those ancient computers that are the predecessors of the very powerful machines we have today. Unlike in passports today, the photo on the data page is the actual photo that I submitted to the passport agency, which was affixed and then "sealed on" with the laminate page. I had to remove my picture just for my protection, but if you saw the original, you would see how the eagle from the Great Seal of the United States is actually printed on the laminate that is applied onto the photo, which I guess was a measure taken to combat replacement of the picture. The USA design on the upper half of the picture is also printed onto the laminate.


This second passport is quite different from the first in that it is more colorful and has more activity. The theme is red and blue hexagons. The inside of the passport was also changed from the simple seal of the United States to a rather messy collage of state seals (you'll see what I mean in later posts). The security image printed on the laminate is no longer the seal of the United States, but three stars to the left of the photo, which you cannot see since I removed my photo. I do not understand this shift from the great seal to three stars that are on the photo itself since it is more obvious to see an alteration if the seal of the picture and the seal on the data page do not match if the design is on both the data page and the picture, and not just on the picture.

Notice that this passport was processed at the National Passport Center (I guess in Washington, DC?) and not in Los Angeles like my first one.



My third passport's design is very similar to that of the second one, but the typeface has changed to a more modern-looking one. Also, the picture is now printed directly onto the data page; in the past, they would attach the actual photo you submitted, and now they scan your picture and print it right onto the page. I guess this makes it almost virtually impossible to replace the image on the passport since it is printed onto the passport and no longer attached. Of course, there is no need for a laminate here.

Also, notice how the French translations of the months in the dates has been removed and that the consular message is now also written in Spanish, probably because of the increase in movement of Americans in Latin America or probably because now there are so many Spanish speakers in the American population that there is a necessity to include Spanish?

One last thing: this passport was processed at the New Orleans Passport Agency, which I think is quite neat since I lived in Los Angeles. I think it may have been because I applied for a passport at the Post Office and perhaps the post office either (1) sent all application from the post office where I applied to St. Louis or (2) my passport application was shuffled around and found its way to St. Louis.

The Circus Inside My Passport

This is one circus that does not amuse me. No, I am unfortunately not referring to a circus of visas and stamps, but I am referring to what I think are terrible pictures that are plastered all over my passport. I mean, I like the pictures, but just not in my passport.

Dual Citizenship

First off, a little bit on the two passports I use.

I was born in the United States of America and am thus a natural-born citizen of this great country. By operation of law, I was also born a Filipino citizen since my parents held Philippine passports at the time of my birth.

RA9225 ratified by Philippine President Gloria Arroyo in 2003 is the reason why I have two passports. The law affords Philippine citizenship to those who have abandoned their Filipino citizenship through naturalization in other countries as well as to those who are born in a foreign country to at least one Filipino parent.

So actually all I needed to do was file my birth at the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles and then after about a week, voila, I have a second passport!

Holding two passports has its pros and cons.

First off, if I were to ever get into trouble in the Philippines, I cannot count on US Consular protection to help me, but, then again, it's not like good, old-fashioned dinero can't get you out of any situation you might find yourself in throughout your course of stay in the Philippines.

Second, as I hold two passports, there is a higher chance that I might lose one of my citizenships due to some technicality. But, then again, all I really need to do is act like a good citizen and I'm sure I won't find myself in too much trouble.

The pros somewhat outweigh the cons. Why? For example, if I ever want to visit China, I won't have to pay the exorbitant visa fee of USD 100 that I would have to pay if I used my US passport. I could use my Philippine passport and pay about USD 25. I've done it four times, so if you think about it, those four visas equal just one visa one a US passport! Catch is, if ever something goes wrong while I'm in China, it will be difficult to ask for help or protection from the US government.

Also, if I want to go to Europe, I can go visa-free. With my US passport, I don't need visas to go to most of the countries in the world or at least visa restrictions and application procedures are lighter on US citizens. And, since I like to collect visas, my Philippine passport affords me the chance to apply for visas that I would never get on my US passport! Actually, on my recent trip to Cambodia, I actually decided to use my US passport since that way I could get one of them neat visa stickers. If I used my Philippine passport, I would just get the entry and exit stamps.

So, you see, having the two passports affords me the mobility to move around the world more freely than if I had only one of them!



Here is my American e-Passport. I prefer the older ones. This is my fourth passport and of all the four designs I have, this is my least favorite. This one is too modern and techie for me. I also do not like all the pictures printed on each page of the passport because they make the passport look so gawdy and messy, and sometimes you can no longer see the visa stamps in your passport anymore!

I get the feeling that these drawings make the new US passport look less presentable and respectable than the older ones that just had official seals printed on them. However, it seems that the US just joined the bandwagon of countries with different designs on each page. I have learned that other countries governments such as Hong Kong, Korea, and, quite recently, Australia have also begun printing different designs on each page in an effort to curb passport fraud and make page replacement a bit harder than it once was.


This is my first Philippine passport. As you can see from the blank space at the bottom of the data page, it is not machine readable (MRP), a fact that many immigration authorities protested. In response to the complaints brought up by the international community, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration decided to upgrade its passports to machine readability and, very recently, to e-Passport RFID technology. The change happened so quickly since I believe the Philippines is one of the last countries to switch to the MRP system and now it has escalated to the level of e-Passports. Also, from what I understand, the Philippines offers the cheapest e-Passport in the world since the e-Passport costs a little more than USD 20 while most other passport costs much, much more. The US e-Passport, for example, cost me USD 100!

The last non-MRP passports was apparently issued in 2007 and should be valid until expiration in 2012, but I heard that this policy has changed and the non-MRP will no longer be honored for travel starting sometime this year (2010).

The non-MRP Philippine passport had a green motif and the cover was green. The new ones are maroon-covered and have a blue-red motif, which I do not like in the same way I do not like the new US e-Passport.

It's funny how I do not like the new passports. I guess it means I either don't like change or I don't like modernity. Or it could just mean that I am old-fashioned.