No paperwork, this was many years ago.
Yes the NSO application is in hand. We will know by thursday. I aiming to book their flight end of March lol so timing is very tight. This is the last piece and to be honest we did not anticipate this issue.
Ironically it was the travel agent who held the original Phil passport and my bro forgot to renew it and they lost it when he returned to retrieve it ! However I did not think of the endorsement idea which I will definitely pursue now thank you!
Advice from the Embassy was the same as yours, seek NSO cert, otherwise only re-course is reconstruction timed at 4-6 months which is quite frankly ridiculous. I'd rather pay that fine.