DOLE relaxes rules on foreign workers

By Samuel P. Medenilla, Manila Bulletin, Dec 9, 2017

The Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) will start implementing today its amended rules for the issuance of the alien employment permit (AEP) in a bid to relax regulations on the entry of foreign workers.

DOLE Bureau of Local Employment (BLE) director Dominique Tutay said with the enforcement of Department Order (DO) 186-17 on Dec. 9, 2017, several foreign worker categories will now be excluded from the AEP requirement.

The AEP is a documentary requirement for foreigners before they could work in the country.

Instead of the AEP, the excluded workers would now have to secure the new Certificate of Exclusion (COE) from DOLE’s regional offices.

The COE, which only costs P500, is cheaper and easier to get than the AEP, which would cost foreigners P9,000.

“This is part of our commitment with countries, where we have trade agreements, to relax our rules and regulation for foreign workers,” Tutay said.

The COE will apply to the following categories: Members of the governing board and voting rights only and do not intervene in the management of the corporation or in the day to day operation of the enterprise, president and treasurer, who are part-owner of the company and those providing consultancy services who do not have employers in the Philippines.

Also covered by the COE are intra-corporate transferee who is a manager, executive or specialist as defined by DO 186; contractual service supplier who is manager, executive or specialists and an employee of a foreign service supplier which has no commercial presence in the Philippines and a representative of the foreign principal/employer assigned in the Office of the Licensed Manning Agency (OLMA) in accordance with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration law, rules and regulation.

She explained DOLE decided to exclude the aforementioned workers from the AEP requirement since they do not have an employer-employee relationship with a Philippine company.

“Even if they are here in the country, their employers are still based abroad usually from their country of origin,” Tutay said.

The COE, Tutay said, was implemented so the government could still monitor the number of foreign workers entering the country.

“Aside from the list of foreigners under the AEP, our regional offices would now also have to submit a separate list for the COE,” Tutay said.

She said concerned foreign workers, who will not get the COE, will have difficult time securing their visas at the Bureau of Immigration (BI) and extending their stay in the country.