DUBAI: The Philippine Consulate General’s (PCG) Civil Registry section used to receive an average of five Reports of Birth a day back in 2014-15, according to Jennifer Pimentel, consular assistant assigned to that unit. Last year, she said, the figure has risen to 20.
Which comes as no surprise considering that PCG’s Weddings section, officiates an average of 25 mass weddings of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) a week these days – that’s 100 a month or 1,200 newly-weds a year. Not included in these figures are OFWs who inter-married with other nationalities.
Meantime, it was also learned that Reports of Death have likewise increased from two to three a month in 2017 to 30 a month last year. There approximately are half a million OFWs in Dubai and the Northern Emirates.
Pimentel was recipient of the Foreign Affairs’ Best Employee of the Year for efforts to streamline the database and procedures relative to the consulate’s Civil Registration section.
With her innovation, an OFW requesting for records would not anymore have to wait for weeks because the system has been digitalized. “We can do it within the day basta on request,” Pimentel told reporters.
She said the digitalization process started in 2017. “Ako kasi nahihirapan sa paghahanap ng record,” Pimentel recalled, adding that back then, files where in hard copies and foldered in cabinets.
She said the database is secured.
