blacklight (ultraviolet light) plus philippine passport pages

"The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriosity is the oddest
and most foolish failing there is."
--Stephen Fry

1st day of april 2015 
once upon a wednesday

weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! thanks to the tip that i got from ate bambit, i found out about the interesting images that are embedded on the pages of our passports. 

thanks also to that viral article showing the images revealed by ultraviolet light (a.k.a. blacklight) on the pages of the canadian passport! ate bambit got curious and she wondered if there's something similarly interesting in philippine passports that we can see with blacklight, too. surprise, surprise... there are! she shared some pics and i got really interested so i went looking for a handy blacklight.

-- some of the blacklight treats in philippine passports -- 

here are some of the images from my old and my new passports (yep, even the old one!). these are all mobile shots so bear with the quality. 

departure and arrival stamps on my old passport
note: china really prefers to use red :)

i was surprised to find out that even those entry-exit stamps we get upon departure and arrival light up with blacklight... ohhh so they use special ink for those stamps.

this represents the generic look of the pages
of my old passport under blacklight
several lines of the passport issuing agency's name in filipino and in english
with the letters written all caps in normal and mirror-orientation
above the page number and a featured image at the bottom

those passport pages are not plain-looking at all! blacklight reveals that all the pages in the philippine passport have something other than the passport number and logo.

in my old passport (maroon and machine-readable; issued in 2008), all pages on the right face of every spread bear the image of the national flower of the philippines, the sampaguita. the photo which appears before this paragraph is page 42 and the left face of the last spread of my old passport. page 42 bears the image of the 2000-year old banaue rice terraces, a national cultural treasure of the philippines.

some of the images featured on the pages of the machine-readable passport:

sampaguita, kalesa, philippine jeepney, and abaca

rizal monument (manila), intramuros (old walled city of manila), barasoain church (malolos, bulacan),
and the colorful vintas (zamboanga)

bicolandia's mayon volcano and bohol's chocolate hills

both my old and new passports have a panoramic image of the malacañang palace on the centerfold. in my old passport, after the centerfold, the right face images from the previous pages were just used again. 

the centerfold image of the machine-readable passport
malacañang palace

unlike the old passport, my new passport (e-passport; issued in 2012) packs more and bears a unique image on every page -- representing stuff from northernmost batanes to southwesternmost tawi-tawi and from palawan in the west to surigao in the east!

some of the images featured on the pages of the e-passport:

stone houses (batanes), paoay church (ilocos norte), calle crisologo (vigan, ilocos sur),
and banaue rice terraces (ifugao)

bamboo organ (las piñas), the big guns of battery way (corregidor island),
mayon volcano and cagsawa ruins (bicol), and mines view park (baguio)

blood compact shrine (bohol), san juanico bridge (samar-leyte),
gen. macarthur and company landing memorial (palo, leyte), and lapu-lapu monument (cebu)

i am delighted that iligan city and tawi-tawi share a spread in the e-passport. on page 18 is an image of the maria cristina falls and on page 19 is the image of the sheikh makhdum masjid, which stands on the site of the oldest mosque in the philippines in simunul island, tawi-tawi.

'

images of mindanao in my new passport
maria cristina falls (iligan city) and sheikh makhdum mosque (tawi-tawi)

because i'm from iligan city, page 18 deserves a highlight in this post! hihihi.

presenting... the blacklight look of the 18th page of my new passport
iligan city's maria cristina falls 

another image of mindanao in my new passport
surigao's day-asan footbridge

well, if you think that this post is an april fool's day prank, get a uv lamp or uv penlight and see for yourself!

in my honest opinion, it's really a must-try! you won't be disappointed unless your passport is fake. hahaha.

post scripts:
(1) all the blacklight images 'hidden' in the machine-readable passport are already embedded in this post. i selected only a few from the pages of the e-passport but here's the list of featured blacklight images from that newer and better version: rizal monument, banaue rice terraces, bonifacio monument, vigan (calle crisologo), leyte landing memorial, chocolate hills, mayon volcano, corregidor, mines view park, blood compact shrine, day-asan footbridge (surigao), lapu-lapu monument, san juanico bridge, windmills of bangui, maria cristina falls, simunul island mosque, cultural center of the philippines, aguinaldo shrine, malacañang palace, san agustin church, taal volcano, fort santiago, san sebastian church, tubbataha reef, manila city hall, fort san pedro, barasoain church, national museum, callao cave, miag-ao church, limestone cliff (el nido, palawan), fort pilar, mt. apo, las piñas bamboo organ, people power monument, mt. samat shrine, underground river of palawan, batanes stone houses, paoay church, and the makati business district.

(2) with blacklight, philippine passport pages appear more interesting than philippine bills. i used to think that it was the other way around.

blacklight + PhP 20 bill
except for the serial number on the bill's front face,
nothing else really interesting lights up
so here's the back side

blacklight + PhP 100 bill
same case as the PhP 20 bill -- except for the serial number on the bill's front face,
nothing really interesting lights up
so here's the back side