Part Two
IVY D. Miravalles of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas said the CFO distinguishes clients by strict classification.
There are clients classified as family sponsored, or those going abroad after being petitioned by their parents or member of the family. The CFO also have clients typed as “youth”, or those petitioned by parents and/or leaving the country permanently to live abroad. A similar classification is the nikkei-jin. The Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center said the phrase is “a Japanese term for Japanese emigrants and their descendants who have established families and communities in recipient countries”.
The nikkei-jin typology is further classified into two categories: the first generation nikkie-jin and the shin nikkei-jin or Japanese-Filipino children. The former are persons with Japanese blood. The latter are children out of marriage of a Japanese and a Filipino.
The fourth classification is the Exchange Visitor Program (EVP).
Miravalles, officer in charge of the CFO Migrant Integration and Education Division, said the EVP stems from an agreement between the United States and the Philippines wherein the former welcomes participants of exchange cultural programs. She said the Philippines actively participates in this program, sending students to the US to pursue specific academic courses. The program includes teachers, researchers, doctors and engineers.
Miravalles explained the US has stipulated persons accepted in the program must return to the Philippines “to transfer the skills and technology they learned to internationalize the education system”.
Under this rule, Miravalles said, “The US has imposed a two-year ban where the applicant cannot apply for visa to go to the US unless they have spent the required two-year transfer of skills and technology they learned in the US to the Philippines setting.”
‘Au pair’
A similar program available in Europe is called Cultural Program, which is open to an au pair, or domestic assistant.
Those who qualify are given the chance to stay anywhere in Europe from one year to two years—depending on the country—to live with a host family. An au pair is typically a woman who helps with housework or child care in exchange for room and board.
According to the CFO, an au pair is a young Filipino citizen, 18 to 30 years of age, unmarried and without any children and placed under a cultural exchange arrangement with a host family for a maximum stay of two years.
Registration and attendance in the “Country Familiarization Seminars” is held at the CFO’s Manila office (there is a CFO branch in Cebu), on a first-come, first-served and walk-in basis. The CFO said it will only accept an au pair with complete registration requirements.
Clients are asked to come to the CFO Manila office an hour before the session starts.
The requirement for registration includes: original valid passport, original valid visa; one identification card with photograph, original contract of engagement or letter undertaking to engage, duly authenticated, notarized and translated by the Philippine Embassy or Consulate in the European country of destination.
The CFO charges P400 ($7.91) as registration fee. Miravalles said a person accepted into the program would be given an all-expense paid tenure and give the au pair the opportunity to experience European culture, “and to learn the language of the particular country where [he or she] stayed”.
So, aside from English, they have the chance to learn Italian, French, Greek, German and other European languages, she added.
“Again, the stipulation is that the au pair must go back to the Philippines after their tenure is over.”
Mixed marriage
MIRAVALLES said the CFO is the only government agency that provides guidance counseling for those who will marry or are about to marry a foreigner.
For Filipinos who have acquired another citizenship and wanted to marry a Filipino, “we classify them as no longer Filipinos because they have acquired the citizenship of their host country”, she explained.
They, too, undergo CFO counseling, Miravalles added.
The CFO said the law is quite strict in this regard, requiring them to follow three strict decrees.
The first is the Passport Act, which requires “every Filipino who married a foreign national, and who will secure a passport, to go to the CFO to attend the guidance and counselling program.”
The second is the Anti-Human Trafficking Act—enacted in 2003 as Republic Act (RA) 9208 and amended in 2012 as RA 10364. These laws mandate the CFO to have “a predeparture program, specifically, guidance and counseling program for marriage migrants, or those who married other race.”
The third is RA 6955 or the Anti-Mail-Order-Bride Act, which prohibits the business of organizing or facilitating marriages between Filipino women and foreign men, or mail-order brides.
“So, strictly speaking, those we have mentioned are potential clients of the CFO, who must undergo different counseling programs specific to their needs,” Miravalles said.
Guidance, counseling
FOR the past three decades, the CFO has implemented the Guidance and Counseling Program (GCP) for fiancées, spouses and other partners of foreign nationals or of former Filipino citizens.
“The main objective of the program is to assist the integration of Filipinos in their host countries by counseling them on the realities of international migration and preparing them to meet the practical, cultural and psychological challenges in cross-cultural marriage and migration,” Miravalles said.
While she admits the CFO does not have actual statistics of mail-order spouses, the agency does have an Assistance-to-National program and a hotline (1343) where these cases are reported.
Since the counseling program is mandatory, no amount of evasion is sufficient to exempt anybody from attending, Miravalles added.
However, many of the potential candidates for counseling oftentimes are hesitant to attend or delay going to the CFO, she said. Miravalles blames candidates for not showing up for counseling appointments, citing reasons as being too busy or referring to the program as just a waste of time.
Some are just too lazy to attend the seminars, according to Miravalles.
To be concluded
Image credits: Nonie Reyes