Renew your passports on time   

This week, I learned that the father of a former schoolmate died unexpectedly. He came home from church, felt some lightheadedness, then suddenly collapsed.

There were no signs of him being sick in the days leading up to his death so everyone from friends to family members were so shocked and dumbfounded. Joy, my friend who lives here in the US, had to scramble for time off from work and finances to fly back to the Philippines. Just when everything seemed to have been prepared already, there was one big hurdle: Unbeknownst to Joy, her passport had expired.

I have seen this situation over and over again. That is why I always remind my clients to renew their passports even if they think they’re not going to use it in the foreseeable future. Renew it preferably months ahead of its expiry. There may be hitches along the way that you couldn’t anticipate. I remember another friend who did not arrive in Cebu on time while his mother was still in the hospital. He arrived a few days later but his mother had since died. Or that of a client who missed her sister’s funeral entirely because her new passport could not be processed timely due to administrative issues.

As for our friend Joy, she was able to request for an expedited processing, albeit at a more expensive fee. She will be able to go back home with her renewed passport, arriving on the day of her father’s funeral.

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Another passport-related question I was asked lately is about old passports. After renewing, what should you do with it? Should you keep it or throw it away?

An old passport, though how tattered and useless it has become serves a few good purposes. First, a passport could be used as evidence of citizenship. Save for some exceptions, generally a country issues passports to its own citizens. Thus having a US passport could always mean that the individual under whose name the passport is issued to is a US citizen. You may need those old and expired passports when you want to prove that one or both of your parents who has long since died could have been a US citizen because you found his/her old US passport hidden in his/her files.

Second, an old and expired passport could prove presence in a foreign country. When one arrives or departs from a country, his passport is stamped with the dates of arrivals and departures. It may be used as evidence in some applications that require proof of presence or visits in the country.

Third, an old passport may contain date stamps that could be used to calculate your absence or presence in the US. If you apply for US naturalization, you will be asked of the dates and time periods you were outside the US. Those time periods are counted to determine whether or not you satisfied the residency requirement.

So keep those old and expired passports just in case you have some use for it in the future.