Passport Troubles In Manila

[mike_rad]

A friend has lost his Australian passport and is getting sheer hell from the embassy in Manila. After having to prove his financial well being (to show he didn't sell it!), not only do they want to see his birth certificate but they say they also require the birth certificate of one of his parents - ridiculous, especially considering they're both deceased! So far he's only dealt with local staff and after exercising his rights requesting to speak to someone higher up (preferably an Aussie) they told him to piss off.

So I was wondering if anybody might know if there is some online resource that may be able to offer some guidance. TIA

[FarangBuddha]

This sounds awfully fishy to me. If the fella is an Australian citizen, there would surely be a record of his prior passport in their computer system. Being an Aussie, he would certainly be entitled to talk to someone (Australian) in authority at the embassy. If nothing else, they would give him one of those one time use temp. ID documents to get back to Roo-land. He can always call the Aussie foreign ministry in Canberra or contact them online about his problems.

[mike_rad]

Thanks for the reply. He's definitely an Aussie. His parents are immigrants but he was born in New South Wales.

They told him to get lost because he was demanding to speak to an Aussie as he simply didn't believe them when they said he'd have to provide his parents birth certificate. And rightly so. If he was born in Aus, and he'd already presented his birth certificate which he got specially sent over, then what difference does it make where his parents were born? And now they're deceased it's simply unreasonable to demand their birth certificate. Heavens above, how long would it take to get it? He'd have to contact some relative in Europe, someone he's never met, and well, you can imagine what a lot of time consuming messing around it would be...

So they told him to come back in a day or two after he calmed down. Now he feels he's up the proverbial without the proverbial, as he's only got a few more weeks before his flight back to Aus.