I have had a passport since I was 8 years old, renewed every 5 years. Since my last passport was expiring in April of 1999 and the K1 packet specified that my passport should be valid for 6 months after the intended date of travel, I decided to renew it. Most travel agencies will gladly do this service and free you of the associated hassles for P1,000, but I decided to go myself to the Department of Foreign Affairs along Roxas Boulevard. I called beforehand and was advised to bring my old passport, a valid ID with my middle name (in the Philippines, this is usually your mother's maiden surname), such as my driver's license, three 1.77 inch x 1.37 pictures, a pen and P500.
My mom (who was also renewing her passport) and I arrived along Roxas Boulevard shortly after 8 am. We found parking quite a distance away from the actual office, since passport renewal is done in a smaller complex behind the actual DFA building on Roxas Boulevard. If you haven't had your pictures taken yet, don't worry, there are plenty of places to have them taken here.
There are several security checks, but we present our old passports and are let through. To the right side of a small roadway is a basketball court with Steps 1, 2, 3 in large signs posted about. We present our old passports at the window marked Step 1 and are given forms to fill out (Step 2). They contain a list of requirements you need to present for new and renewal passport applications. For renewals, this includes photocopies of the first four pages of your old passport plus stamps of your last entry and exit into the country, and a photocopy of a valid ID with your full middle name. There are several photocopier machines set up there, at P2.00 per page. Mom fortunately brought a stapler (to affix all three photos to the application, better than glue!) and a stamp pad for affixing our thumbprints. We submit these at the window marked Step 3 for inspection, and cross the small roadway to the next building, where a very long line is forming at Step 4. (Note: Passport claimants wait in the same building but on the further side of the very large room.)
Step 4 is inside an airconditioned building. Basically you just cool your heels in line while they take all your applications, then call you to individual windows. Then you go on to the next room and do the same. Finally you go to pay at the cashier (P500 is standard, and you will get your passport in a week, but if you're in a hurry, P650 will shorten your waiting period down to three days). Before exiting, a guard stamps your receipt with the date and time you should claim your new passport at.
One week later, we arrive on schedule and enter the same building. The line is very long, but once everyone is called into the next room, people are called individually to line up at different windows to claim their passports. Fortunately, ours had no errors.