THE Philippine Overseas Employment Administration has served more than 157,000 overseas Filipino applicants under the agency’s one-stop service for OFWs in the second week of November this year or 57 percent increased compared to its clients served last month.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said the streamlined frontline service enabled the agency to serve 157,735 clients which takes only 72 hours for their documents to be processed and released.
Since it was launched in August, the agency already saw an increasing number of clients who availed of its facilities at the POEA Central Office in Mandaluyong OSSCO, as well as in its regional centers in Baguio, Pampanga, Calamba, Palawan, Cebu, Iloilo, Tacloban, and Zamboanga.
“The POEA had served the biggest number of clients during the period with a total of 39,839 clients who availed of documentation of workers on leave or the Balik-Manggagawa and inquired about OFW concerns,” the Labor official said.
This was followed by OWWA who served a total of 31,169 clients who came to the Center to renew or apply for OWWA membership and ask other OFW-related concerns, he said.
On the other hand, the Social Security System accounted for the third biggest number of clients at 22,397, which consisted of OFWs who registered or amended their membership data, applied for benefits and loans, verified their loan or contribution status, enrolled for their Unified Multi-purpose ID Card (UMID) and inquired about their other SSS concerns.