MANILA, Philippines--After the machine-readable passport comes now the "best passport you can have"--electronic passport equipped with a tamper-proof mi-crochip bearing your identification and personal information.

Passports with the electronic chips are set for release in October this year as the Department of Foreign Affairs gears up for the full automation of the Filipino's international ID, beating an April 2010 deadline set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for the phaseout of manually processed passports.

The E-passports will use technology as secure and tamper-proof as identification cards used in the United States military and defense establishments.

The new E-passport system was unveiled Friday in an exhibit celebrating the DFA's 110th anniversary.

Globally compliant

"We target issuance by October to diplomats and [government officials] as a trial. Then we hope to offer the E-passport to the public by December. We will become globally compliant, along with 61 countries that have E-passports," said Assistant Secretary for Consular Affairs Domingo Lucenario Jr.

The DFA has begun preparing the new maroon booklets with its longtime supplier Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), which recently contracted French card systems and identity products firm Oberthur Technologies for technical assistance in making the most advanced Philippine passport to be issued yet.

"It's the top-level, state-of-the-art technology that we're using here. It's the best passport you can have. There's no better technology in the world," said Xavier Fricout, director for identity products and cards systems of Oberthur Technologies.

One tiny chip

Besides advanced security features on its laminated information page and individual sheets, the E-passport will contain the bearer's photo, fingerprints and personal information in one tiny chip embedded on the end cover page.

The laboratory-certified imbeds use computer software that is "a little better" than what Oberthur had used in passports of other nations it had worked on like that of Belgium, Taiwan, Thailand and Kuwait, Fricout said.

Lucenario said the imbeds would provide "triple validation" of a traveler's circumstances upon immigration check as a port officer may verify the bearer's information on the passport against data to be retrieved from the chips and from the passport holder.

For this state-of-the-art passport, applicants need to have their ID picture and fingerprint taken at the DFA offices.

No price yet

Lucenario said the DFA is still finalizing details on the price and processing time for the electronic booklets, but he estimated that it may take "between five to 10 days" to process the E-passports.

MRPs take at least seven days to process at P500 for regular application and P750 for rushed processing. The DFA issues between 10,000 to 12,000 a day at its main office and consular offices around the world.

The new passport will replace the manually processed green passport, where the bearer's information is encoded long hand. The E-passport will also gradually take the place of the machine-readable passports (MRPs), maroon booklets embedded with computer-recognized biometrics and safety features for tamper-proofing.

Green passports still valid

Lucenario said the two earlier passport versions would still be recognized in ports around the world until expiration. The DFA had just started issuing E-passports in June last year as an interim for the eventual installation of an E-passport system.

"We have informed the international community to respect the validity of the green passports and MRPs," he said.