via Pauline Requesto
The Department of Labor and Employment will soon issue the guidelines for overseas Filipinos workers to be able to avail of the iDOLE ID card, Secretary Silvestre Bello III said yesterday.
Launched on Wednesday, Bello described the iDOLE ID as the ‘best gift’ that President Duterte is giving to millions of OFWs for easy transactions with government and private agencies concerning their overseas employment.
He said the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration will upload the names of the duly registered OFWs to the DOLE cloud, then downloaded for printing.
“All the unique IDs will be delivered to them, whether they are in the Philippines or overseas,” Bello said.
He said that the OFW ID, a major component of the Integrated Department of Labor and Employment (iDOLE) System will undergo a three-month pilot run before it can serve as the OFW’s Automated Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC), and airport and immigration ID pass.
Also, OFWs can later log-in and create an account in the iDOLE.ph or the iDOLE One-Stop Online Facility/Portal, which is currently being upgraded, for the OFWs to access their government records electronically without the need to go to concerned government offices prior to their deployment.
“We have printed this unique ID and provided one to an OFW who works as event manager in New Zealand during the soft launching with President Duterte,” Bello said.
After the pilot run, the ID will serve as the Travel Exit Clearance of OFWs for two years from the date of the issuance and it will entitle them to travel tax and terminal fee exemptions.
Bello also said the unique IDs, which is equipped with a QR code for its security features will be printed by the APO Printing Unit, a highly-sensitive security printing services, the entity which also prints Philippine passports.
“With the OFW ID, our Bagong Bayani will no longer need to fall in line in transacting with government and private agencies for their overseas employment as they can now access the services online,” he said.
The iDOLE system is aimed to interlink the databases of DOLE offices and agencies’ with other government agencies for a more reliable, updated and complete Labor Market Information System (LMIS) for employment facilitation purposes.
