Coming Home? Get Ready to be Tracked!
Do you know an OFW coming back home soon? The government wants to know and so does the IATF.
In a press release dated June 14, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III announced that the Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) will be sharing the information it has collected from its newly activated overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) tracking system with the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID).
The OASIS, or the OFW Assistance Information System, was activated last June 11 to document all OFWs who plan on returning to the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The information that is being collected by the system will provide returning Filipino citizens any assistance they need when they return to the country.
“Through this system, the government can track the whereabouts of our returning OFWs and provide them prompt assistance and relief upon their return to the country,” Labor Secretary Bello said. The tracker, he said, will make the government “more responsive and prepared for the arrival of our OFWs.”
The tracker will collect each OFW’s information to do the following:
- facilitate the identification and classification of arriving OFWs;
- facilitate their organized arrival at the airport;
- assist in efficient swab testing;
- rapid pick up and transport to their respective hotels and homes;
- plus, other necessary processes.
The database requires the OFWs to register through its official Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) website and fill out the form. It requires information to be submitted such as the OFW’s photo, their departure and arrival dates, their travel document information, their current health condition, their local addresses, and other relevant personal information as per the Data Privacy Act of 2012.
The system was created by the crisis management personnel of the DoLE, the OWWA, and the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) and is run by the DoLE Command Center.