ZAMBOANGA CITY—Tax exemptions have been granted by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration to returning overseas Filipino workers in the Zambonga Peninsula under its “Balik Manggagawa” program, POEA region IX director Marietta Bellotindos said.
Bellotindos said a Balik Manggagawa was a “registered OFW who would return to the same employer and jobsite and hired through the government placement branch.”
She said Labor Secretary Silvestro Bello III earlier approved Resolution 2 passed by the POEA governing board headed by Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac.
Bellotindos announced that among the tax exemptions granted to the returning OFWs in Zamboanga Peninsula and other regions of the country include “the payment of travel tax and terminal fee” even as they will “no longer be required to secure overseas employment certificate.”
The POEA regional chief stressed that “with the exemptions, returning OFWs can spend and enjoy more their vacation with their own families, instead of utilizing their precious time processing necessary documents like the OEC with the POEA branches in regional capitals of the country.
She further disclosed that her office based in this highly urbanized city has so far served more than 10,000 Balik Manggagawa from Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga del Norte, and their component cities of Dipolog, Dapitan, Pagadian and Isabela City, Basilan during the first two quarters of 2016.
Most of the returning OFWs, Bellotindos said, were employed in Malaysia, Brunei Darrusalam, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Bahrain, Papua New Guinea, Qatar , United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Seychelles, and Indonesia, Japan and Spain.
They were emplyed as domestic helpers, farm laborers, engineers, heavy equipment operators, managerial and administrative works, construction laborers and caregivers.
