PROCESSING delays of passports for aspiring overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) continue in some regional offices operated by the Foreign Affairs Consular Offices due to alleged appointment system and unreasonable demands for identification cards.
This has frustrated Filipinos who want to go abroad and seek jobs for their families, according to recruitment consultant Emmanuel Geslani, who gathered reports from some recruitment agencies outside of Manila.
Geslani said many of prospective applicants seeking work abroad have encountered some unreasonable demands from the Department of Foreign Affairs’s (DFA) regional offices in Davao, Zamboanga and Legaspi, saying processors from DFA offices have demanded additional identification documents like driver’s licenses, Social Security System (SSS) ID and voter’s ID.
Prospective OFWs said many other ID documents are being required, despite the applicants’ submission of authenticated National Statistics Office birth or marriage certificates, PhilHealth ID, National Bureau of Investigation or police clearance and digitized postal ID. Those requirements, like driver’s license, SSS ID or voter’s ID, are over and above the minimum requirements needed by an ordinary applicant, Geslani said, adding “most of the applicants are young women from Mindanao who are not expected to drive and most of them do not possess SSS ID, since it is the first time they have applied for an overseas job.”
The continued delay in the compliance of unnecessary requirements by some personnel from the DFA Consular Office, asking unreasonable demands, is preventing prospective OFWs from being gainfully employed abroad in places like Hong Kong, Singapore and the Middle East. It should be recalled that President Duterte has ordered the DFA to eliminate the long lines in passport offices.
However, Mr. Duterte’s directives seem to have fallen on deaf ears, as some DFA personnel in faraway places like Davao, Zamboanga and Legaspi act on appointment if some form of bribes is offered, according to reports reaching the recruitment industry leaders in Manila, Geslani said.