The Philippines has always been and continues to be a land where cumbersome paperworks rules. Even Filipinos leaving the country to work abroad or migrate in the proverbial “greener pastures,” they get that stark reminder every time they go back to the Philippines.
Take a look at a report by Inquirer.net about overseas Filipino workers (OFW) based in Singapore coming to the country for tourism purposes. Instead of flying direct return flight from Kalibo to Singapore (thanks to Tiger Airways and SilkAir for establishing this route and bypassing stopovers), they were stopped from boarding. That’s because they did not have OEC (overseas employment certificate), a document that, when presented at certain counters at Philippine airports on outbound flights, exempts Filipino travelers from paying terminal fees and travel taxes as mandated by law as a ‘favor’ for OFWs.
So it appears that if one does not have this document, he or she is not an OFW and must pay the fees collected at the airport. Apparently not, as Alvin Miranda, the Singapore-based OFW and his companion were not allowed to fly back their scheduled flight. Since there is no Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) desk in Kalibo to accommodate the request for OEC, they were forced to cancel their journey and make a detour to Manila, just to get the OEC. Of course, they have to book another set of outbound flight tickets from Manila to Singapore.
Miranda’s Facebook post — entitled ‘SUMMARY: I absolutely hate our government’ sums it up: “We got back in our Singapore apartment around 3:15 am. More than 8 hours after our original arrival time, unnecessarily braving Manila traffic from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1, taxi extortion, long immigration lines, seeing fellow passengers desperately ensuring no bullets are planted in their luggage, forfeited non refundable, non rebookable Kalibo-Singapore SQ tickets, and 26,000 pesos poorer.”
While it’s a boon for Department of Tourism that a) the Philippines is blessed with a variety of world-class attractions like Boracay, Palawan and others and; b) Filipinos based abroad with high disposable income have always longed to pay a visit to the beloved homeland, the inefficiency can easily drive anyone mad, generate embarrassment especially when employers and colleagues abroad ask, “why does the Philippines operate that way?”
International Tourism Arrivals 2014
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Malaysia: 27.43 million
Thailand: 24.78 million
Singapore: 11.8 million
Indonesia: 9.43 million
Vietnam: 7.8 million
Philippines: 4.83 million
Cambodia: 4.5 million
Myanmar: 3.08 million
Such number seems shocking as the Philippines has a variety of wonders of Mayon, Tubbataha Reef, Sagada, Hundred Islands, and Vigan, and beaches Bohol, Cebu and Palawan, plus the warm Filipino hospitality and English fluency perfect for foreign tourists. Part of the anemic data could be traced by the lack of infrastructure — we all have to pass almost always through the congested Manila airport terminals — and the nightmare Alvin Miranda and other travelers have often to put up with.
As a gateway to the Philippines, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport has hogged the headlines for bad reasons: taxing the luggage content, unscrupulous taxi drivers, offloading at immigration counters, bullet-planting syndicates, and so on that it earned the dubious Worst Airport in the World title a few years back. If President Noynoy Aquino is unperturbed with the anomaly surrounding the airport named after his father, maybe no other president will.
The inefficiency in the airport runs everywhere. While many other airports worldwide grant free access on public areas and do not collect fees, NAIA and other Philippine airports are an exception. Heck, even if there is a law that exempts OFWs from paying terminal fees, hence the existence of OEC, the airport continues to dodge by integrating terminal fees with airfares. As a result, OFWs have to queue for a refund on the amount they should have not been charged to begin with.
Every applicant who tries to go abroad has to go through a number of processes, in the name of becoming a “documented worker.” Sign here, pay there. The POEA, the country’s labor regulator tries to micromanages everything, afraid of getting blamed in case a Filipino worker is harrassed, kidnapped, underpaid or trafficked abroad. As a result, it has
As they experience the work and working conditions themselves, not to mention the simplified processes abroad, overseas Filipino workers should be empowered on how things are done, instead of being governed by rules that brings no-win situation to all parties. For example, New Zealand dairy employers who admire the work ethics of Filipino workers, are forced to look elsewhere because of some “unfair provisions” required by Philippine authorities.
And if an overseas Filipino worker tries to set up a new business, imagine the amount of effort to get things done: documentary requirements and fees. No wonder the Philippines is ranked 95th worldwide in ease of doing business. It seems that the Philippines is better off exporting its labor than retaining it home through easy access for investors that need Filipino expertise.
For Filipinos, both abroad and in the Philippines, the failure to do the right thing has brought the country in such unfavorable condition and curtails the country’s development. Instead of thinking how can services be improved with less effort, less time and less expenses, authorities are merely content with what is convenient for them and are often resistant to change. Compounded by corruption, the inefficient system continues to plague more victims, and we expect more tales shared by the disgruntled citizens on social media just like what Alvin Miranda and countless others have done.