Dubai: Filipino residents may no longer have to queue up outside the labour office in Al Qusais to get their exit clearances as an online appointment system is in the works and may go live within the year, an official said.
Vacationing Filipinos need to secure an exit clearance or Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) to prove that they are going to the Philippines for a holiday and intend to go back to the same employer abroad. It is a Philippine requirement and those without it won’t be allowed to leave Manila airports.
Serpentine queues, some as early as 2am, are a common sight at the labour office due to the high demand for the document during peak months.
To eliminate the long queues, Labour Attache Delmer Cruz said their office is already working on an online appointment system, similar to a passport appointment portal launched by the consulate in February.
“It’s still a work in progress. We’re still at the technical aspect. I cannot give you an exact date but according to the officer in-charge of the project, we are targeting this year as the launch date,” Cruz told Gulf News.
“What we can achieve with it is crowd management. So instead of the applicants coming in huge volumes at once early in the morning, we can distribute them through the time allotted per applicant.”
Cruz said he also hopes that the system will reduce the processing time of the OEC per person.
“Since the applicant fills in his details online in advance, we can use that for the encoding process. Our aim is to cut our encoding time per applicant by half,” referring to the current five-minute processing time.
Some 300 residents from Dubai and the northern emirates apply for OECs daily. Between 30 and 40 per cent of this number are Filipinos who were previous holders of tourist visas and are going on vacation for the first time.
