Balik Manggagawa online system: boon or bane for OFWs?

In a dimly-lit avant-garde dining place at the charming Raffles Hotel in Singapore, I lost my phone and along with it, perhaps more than five years of data and memories.

I didn’t have a Singapore Sling – that famed 1915 cocktail – that night so I must have been simply distracted by the wood-fired gastronomic adventure. I was there for a chat with sources after a press event. The restaurant was fully booked.

Because the phone is just an emergency or back-up unit, although still with valuable data, I only noticed it was missing the next day or 20 hours later, long after I left the place.

The following day, back in my hotel, when I finally realized I lost my phone, a resident told me, “This is Singapore, you’ll get it back...unless people of other nationalities chanced upon it.”

I went back to Raffles, made some inquiries and not long after, I was at the hotel concierge reunited with my lost phone.

This is Singapore, indeed, but this time, it was not because a Singaporean found it. I learned that the Filipino waiter who served our table that night found it and surrendered it to hotel security.

Hearing this made me so proud of my fellow Filipino. I remember him, the only Filipino waiter I saw in the restaurant that night.

You’ll immediately notice him because he did his job with so much passion and gusto. It’s as if he was serving the British royal family or some powerful sheik from the Middle East or a president of a superpower.

He was friendly, efficient and gave us excellent service.

That night, I thanked him for his kind service. I even took a photo of us together. His name is Melvin, although I didn’t get his full name.

We are everywhere

Melvin is just one of at least 1.7 million overseas Filipino workers across the globe.

They are everywhere and I’m sure that each of us fortunate enough to travel abroad must have encountered at least one OFW.

They are in airport duty-free shops, in international five-star hotels, in cruise ships, in restaurants, malls and what-have-you.

In my experience meeting OFWs from the world over, they are among the best foreign workers in any country. They speak English well, they are hardworking, they are kind, warm, hospitable and they are almost always happy to see their fellow Filipinos.

In an international writer’s workshop I attended last year, an author from Canada shared with me that a Filipina domestic helper is taking care of her children.

This gives her peace of mind, she said, because the Filipina always goes the extra mile. She must have meant malasakit and I very well understand.

This is how most OFWs are and I am always proud to see them in different corners of the world.

But every encounter, of course, is also a poignant reminder that behind each and every smile and laughter are sacrifices and hardship of being away from their loved ones; of being forced by circumstance to work away from their home country.

Thorn in the side

Government shouldn’t add to our OFWs’ woes.

Unfortunately, I learned recently that the new online system for Balik Manggagawa, launched by the government in June last year, has been a thorn in the side of OFWs.

The new system is an online process for getting an Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC), which is a clearance issued to Balik Manggagawa or those who exit the Philippines for employment purposes. They are those serving an employment contract and are returning to the same employer after a visit to our country.

They need the certificate to exit the Philippines. It was meant to protect them from illegal recruiters or employers. The new system was also meant to expedite the process of issuing these employment certificates but this is not what’s happening in some cases, say some OFWs. 
There are numerous complaints. Many cannot navigate the new online system because the portal isn’t working sometimes and therefore, they cannot get their certifications.

The questions, confusion and complaints are all over social media that fixer-like groups offering assistance to departing OFWs for a fee have sprouted.

On the other hand, those who are able to get their certifications go through another tedious process when they go through Immigration at the airport.

It turns out, an OFW told me, that sometimes, the Bureau of Immigration is unable to verify the authenticity of the certifications submitted by departing OFWs.

Thus, they need to go to the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration desks at the airport to have their certifications verified. This is after they fell in line for hours at the Immigration. In the process, some end up missing their flights.

Heroes

This shouldn’t be the case. As it is now, many of them are forced by circumstance to leave their home country. The least our government can do is to make things easier for them.

As I said, our OFWs are some of the most hardworking workers abroad. They are smart, efficient and they go the extra mile in doing their jobs, despite the dangers and harsh working conditions in some of their host countries.

At the very least, they deserve a government that is as efficient as them, one that goes the extra mile.

Home

“There’s no place like home,” says Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, as she kicked her heels and longed for the comfort of her own bed.

Our OFWs should feel exactly this when they come to the Philippines. The least our government can do is to not be like the Wicked Witch in Dorothy’s life.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.