Nathan Alden, Sr.

Hi, all. My wife (Filipina) and I (US citizen) embarked on the Filipino name change rigmarole just recently. I have an I-130 petition in progress, FWIW. Tomorrow, my wife was scheduled to visit the DFA to change her name on her passport to her married name, which would be the first of several name change efforts. Unfortunately, after booking the non-refundable DFA appointment and hostel stay (she's traveling to Dumaguete from the Cebu area as the Cebu DFA is completely booked out several months), she learned a surprise requirement that isn't found on the DFA website: she has to have attended the CFO PDOS seminar! Now here's the problem: the CFO's scheduling website requires visa number and visa expiration date! She doesn't have her visa yet, so we don't know what to do. We did some additional research and found several non-DFA online references to having to complete the CFO seminar before the DFA allows passport name changes. Has anyone run into this problem? How do we proceed? An additional question is will she have to attend the PDOS again later on when her visa is approved, or can she just go back to the CFO office to get a sticker on her then-changed passport (although I remember reading that CFO doesn't issue stickers anymore)? Gripe: Please, DFA. Please update your requirements to be accurate for spouses of foreigners. We could've saved PHP 1000 plus the hostel booking if you just better documented your own processes. 🙄

Thank you, all.

Interesting. Well, it seems that I'm an outlier in one way or another. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks.

Yes, I, the petitioner, was scheduled for a biometrics appointment. I thought this was normal based on everything I've read up until this point. In fact, the USCIS' own language seems to indicate that not having a biometrics interview would be the abnormal thing. The appointment letter doesn't say anything suspicious; it just asks me to bring my identification. I have no criminal history (never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime) and I'm a normal US citizen.

Well, I finally got movement on my I-130 petition filed on June 20, 2024. USCIS scheduled a biometrics interview for a couple of weeks from now. Is it normal to have the biometrics interview scheduled without having received an NOA2? Can someone explain the usual timings of these two things?

Thanks! I've sent them an email.

I'm not sure how to know if I have transmittal details. The documents I sent to the consulate were returned to me stamped, though. Is it on that?

My wife and I filed the Report of Marriage in September 2024 and the PSA still hasn't processed it as of checking a couple of months ago. I emailed the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco and they are now quoting eight to twelve months for PSA processing. Absolutely insane.

Thank you so much for the details! This helps a lot. As far as the ROM, in your case, what was the result? Did the consulate expedite sending the originals to PH?

Hi, all. My wife and I are still waiting on the approval of my I-130 (filed June 20, 2024). Recently, I've been reading up on any changes to the timelines, procedures, etc. from when I had looked into all of this last year. I feel like I have things mostly handled but I did have a couple of questions. I've read in some other posts that it's difficult if not impossible to get the medical exam scheduled before the visa interview and that the consulate knows this. Should she proceed to the visa interview even if the medical isn't completed? What will the embassy say in that case (e.g., will a rescheduled interview cost us another year-plus of waiting?) Same as #1 except regarding the sputum test. She's currently living in Cebu City but since she has nothing tying her to this island, I've advised her to consider moving to the Manila metro area to be closer to the embassy for when this rigmarole goes down, or to live somewhere very, very cheaply (she's comfortable doing this already) and then travel to Manila for potentially quite some time while the long-running medical testing, interview, and CFO shenanigans play out. Advice on this course of action? One aside for those interested: it has been many, many months since filing the Report of Marriage with the San Francisco consulate. Despite this, the PSA still reports there is no record on file. We're trying to get her name changed. The bureaucracy in this country is unbelievable to me at times. It looks like it might even be six months to a year to get the marriage registered with the PSA. I'm going to have her check again soon. She needs to get her name change taken care of!

I commiserate about the concern over Philippine bureaucracy but if you visit the Philippines they already have your name and a bunch of other information. The only thing you need to worry about having a registered marriage is infidelity due to the strict laws. I have to file a Report of Marriage because one of the requirements for the CFO seminar is a PSA marriage license. No RoM, no CEMAR.

I can't edit my original post anymore, but an update: It is possible to perform a full name change in the Philippines but it requires a Regional Trial Court case, and the judge may just decide (after the long, expensive process) to deny it. This option is pretty much off the table now. Now I just need to learn about what downstream effects her changing her name has on the I-130 petition, NVC, and embassy processes.

Hi, all. It's been awhile since I posted. Currently, my I-130 petition for my Filipina spouse is reported to be "1 week" away from review. We'll see how that goes. In the meantime, I had filed our Report of Marriage with the Philippine Consulate in San Francisco several months ago, which was soon after accepted by the Consulate. However, I've read that the PSA is pushing seven months to process Reports of Marriage. I haven't yet checked with the PSA to determine if they even have the record yet. I am currently in Cebu City with my spouse. Is it simply a matter of traveling to a PSA office here and checking? Now for name changes: when we married we did not change her name as the historical rules around name changes in the Philippines are onerous and IMO ridiculous. My spouse wants to change her full name, so I had originally decided to wait until she got to the US to do so, even knowing that it would affect several official immigration documents at that point. I did this because to my knowledge, Filipinas are only allowed to change their last names, even though I had also read that a law was recently passed stating they can change their full names. As we all know, determining what the law is and what the effective rules are in the Philippines is a nightmare. I know changing her name now will obviate future changes to immigration documents, but I have several questions: Will this affect the I-130 petition in any way if her new name no longer matches the petition? Does it matter whether the petition has yet to be reviewed or is already accepted? Do I need to notify the USCIS or NVC or embassy (as appropriate depending on the status of my case) if she changes her name before visa issuance? If so, how? Is it even possible for her to change her full name in the Philippines? I won't get into why she wants to change her full name as there are very personal and valid reasons for her doing so. The Report of Marriage lag is extremely inconvenient. One wonders what the heck is going on at the PSA... The Consulate in San Francisco reviewed our documentation very quickly. Here's a website describing the insanity required to change one's full name in the Philippines: https://duranschulze.com/how-to-legally-change-your-name-in-the-philippines/

I wanted to get the 13A so I could legally get a motorcycle license, legally work, etc., if I wanted to. Plus, it didn't seem that difficult to acquire--at least until now. 😛

I'm originally from Massachusetts, USA and my wife is originally from a tiny farming village called Bagumbang in Misamis Occidental, Philippines.