RP cuts passport costs to Mecca

RP cuts passport costs to Mecca

MANILA (AFP): The Philippines announced yesterday that it was slashing passport fees for Filipino Moslems making their first pilgrimage to Mecca this month.

"I have further instructed that the passport fee for Haj participants be reduced from 500 pesos to 75 pesos (from US$19 dollars to $2.8)," President Fidel Ramos said in a statement.

About five percent of the largely Roman Catholic Philippine population are Moslems. Ramos did not say how many pilgrims were making the trip to the city in Saudi Arabia this year.