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| The OEC exemption slip which thousands of OFWs are now lining up for |
From this Sunday, Dec
4, the Philippine Overseas Labor OFWs Office will extend its office hours to 8 pm at both its 11th and 16th floor offices for the issuance of
the overseas employment certificate (OEC) exemption. The extended opening hours
will apply for all Sundays of December and January 2017.
This is according to
Labor Attache Jalilo de la Torre, who said his office noticed the start of the
usual Christmas crush of OFWs applying for exemption yesterday.
“While many already
applied online, a lot more wanted the small piece of paper, the temporary OEC
exemption, for one reason or another,” he said in his FB post announcing POLO’s
extended service.
The temporary OEX
exemption slip is what a vacationing OFW needs to get past immigration at
Philippine airports and return to his or her employer. However, those who are
flying out through Clark international airport are being asked to register
online, anyway, because the slip is not being honored there for some reason.
The slip must be kept
by the OFWs on their return to Hong Kong as it comes with a reference number
which serves as their one-time pass in creating an account with Balik
Manggagawa Online (BMO) system. Once they manage to create their BMO account,
they will be able to print their own exemption slip each time they need to go
back to the Philippines, for as long as they return to the same employer, and
work site.
Those who change employers, whether
they finished or broke their contracts, are not entitled to the OEC exemption. They
will have to secure an appointment with POLO or any POEA branch in Manila so
they could be helped in either creating a new BMO account, or change the
existing data in their account. - DCLM
