Organizers held off the traditional job fair in this year’s Independence Day celebrations because there was no venue big enough to accommodate an anticipated 15,000 applicants, mostly visit visa holders, who’d take their chance, The Filipino Times learned.
There were some 6,000 visit visa job seekers who came to last year’s job fair, a figure comprising 60% of the 10,000 applicants who managed to register, according to Lyn Federico, head of the Independence Day Job Fair Committee. The figure, she said, could have been bigger had all the rest managed to log in.
“Grabeng dami ng mga tao. Nagkagulo security at mga police. Maraming pina-uwi at di na nakapasok,” Federico said.
Atty. Barney Almazar of Gulf Law confirmed Federico’s estimate, citing a poll done by their law firm. “Our intern did a survey at halos 60% sa kanila (applicants) ay naka-visit visa,” he said on his Facebook post.
Engr. Ma. Fe Dayot, incumbent chair of the 80-member organization FilClub, who was vice chair at the time, said their estimate on the turnout was 15,000. She said among those who also went to the job fair were overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who already have jobs but were looking for better opportunities; and those already served walking papers by their employers.
The Independence Day celebrations, along with the job fair, were held at Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) in two halls, each the size of about five basketball courts.
On why there was no job fair this year, Dayot explained: “Hindi allowed ng DWTC na isang hall lang. Kailangan talagang 2 halls. Eh, wala nang available.”
Dayot said organizers had to close the first hall at 8:30 am during last year’s event because it was already full beyond capacity.
Federico said people started coming in at as early as 6am; the job fair, she said, was scheduled to open at 10am.
Redundant policy
Almazar said the incident runs smack of the Philippine government’s redundant policy to offload Filipinos leaving the country on visit visa trying to look for jobs abroad. Immigration officials have maintained they are mandated to offload them for protection from unscrupulous employers.
“Parang may conflict. Manila prohibits exit of undocumented Filipinos. Pero kahit undocumented wala namang parusa,” Almazar explained, adding that jobseekers on visit visa who managed to successfully land jobs are given the same entitlements as those who left the country with employment visas.
“I am against this law. If we couldn’t implement it correctly and also palpak the process, it might be better to remove this law,” he said.
Just recently, the Philippine Bureau of Immigration (BI) announced that the government’s efforts to combat human trafficking have resulted to 43,233 offloaded Filipinos in 2016.
According to Marc Red Mariñas, port operations division chief at BI, the offloaded passengers failed to comply with existing requirements for departing Filipinos.
