Welcome to the Philippines! The only Country in the world where you are required to fill out three forms when you’re arriving and another form when you’re departing. If I was not in a good, I swear, I would have torn those forms apart! Right after the plane will fly to the Philippines, the flight attendants would right away give you the three forms to fill out. They’re the Immigration Form, Customs Form and the Department of Health (DOH) forms. I really don’t see the need of these forms if you’re an OFW. I just saw the immigration official stamp the Immigration Form and throw it away. The immigration official did not even dare to read what I’ve written in there. The same is true with the DOH and Custom forms where the respective officials just collected them.
In Saudi Arabia, if you have a residence permit (Iqama), there’s no need for you to fill out forms. What’s the use of the forms when you already have an electronic record with the Passport Office (Jawasat) and the Immigration? Forms will only lengthen your agony in waiting while Philippine immigration is stamping your entry. But Filipinos especially the government is really fond of these forms.
You’ll encounter and fill out several forms even if you’re filing your Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC). That doesn’t end there. If you happen to claim your benefits from several other government agencies such as Philhealth, OWWA, etc you’ll surely have to fill out several hundreds of forms.
When you’re departing the country, the check in counter will ask you to show your OEC. He will then give you a ‘Departure’ form which you have to fill out and hand over to the Immigration Office.
Grabe ang pahirap sa mga forms. If you are like me who haven’t practiced their hand writing for more than a decade, I swear your hands and fingers will be very painful. It’s one of the drawbacks in working in an automated office, hand written reports are not anymore necessary. Everything is done electronically.
The forms that every Filipino has to fill out every time he travels mirror our society. We still lag behind other countries including our Southeast Asian neighbors.
4 comments:
ako ma'agree diri!
wala guid ya ti sistema..pabudlay guid sa masa...
san'o pa ni mabag'o?..naku'naku
good'day..:)
haaaaay ... yeah ... and pag may bitbit ka pang mga anak ... nakupo!
korek! when we arrive in Manila from (France) we fill up those three forms also.
Frenchman even told the health personnels, if theres a fourth one, I will not answer anymore!!!!
they should do it when at the plane noh, after all, all we do inside the plane is sit and sleep and eat!
going back to france, i will pass again those,travel tax, departure forms, i wonder wht else!!!!
And if you notice it too, the embarkation card and the disembarkation card are together pero when you arrive in PI, they only get the disembarkation card. Tapos when you leave PI, they ask you to complete a new embarkation card. Wha a waste!
Bureaucracy is a big business in PI.
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