When I was trying to renew my passport, they asked my CFO certificate upon seeing my surname. They said i need it bcoz I am married to a foreign national. I argued with them, i even talked to the higher ranking officer there. I told them that i've been married for almost 2 years (at that time) and I even showed them their guidelines i printed from a DFA website, stating that u don't need CFO if u've been married at least six months prior to the application. But they told me to disregard it.

So i attended the CFO counseling last June and when i went back to DFA, they were so nice. They didn't even make me wait or schedule me for the application. After 15 days, I finally had my passport last Sept. Good thing I got delayed renewing it for a year bcoz at least now, I have the machine-readable passport.