Donna Corpin Saudi Gazette JEDDAH — Since the crackdown on illegal workers in the Kingdom began in April, an estimated 6,000 Filipinos have registered for repatriation — but about half of them now want to stay and find new sponsors. This was revealed by Consul Germinia Aguilar-Usudan, who said that in the first few weeks of the campaign, most Filipinos who registered were clamoring to be sent home. “So we set up a feeding center, we accommodated the women and children, and others set up the ‘tent city'.” However, with the issuance of new guidelines last week by Saudi authorities, “the trend has now shifted from repatriation to transfer of sponsorship,” she said. Those who have decided to go home just need to request for travel documents, of which more than 100 have already been processed, according to Usudan. Travel documents are issued for free and are processed immediately — applicants can get it the same day they requested for it or the following day. After workers secure travel documents, the next thing they need are exit visas from the Passport Department (Jawazat), she said. “We bring them to Jawazat. We were informed that Filipinos are scheduled on Saturdays. I heard the requirement for NoCs (no-objection certificates) has been waived; people are given exit visas even without NoCs.” They are brought back to the consulate once they are issued exit visas, and the consulate then schedules them for flights. “We issue the ticket and bring them to the airport,” Usudan said. She added that it can be quite difficult to book a large number of passengers all at once, and they are having a problem looking for outbound flights. “We are booking them based on the availability of seats. Any airline we can find, we book them. The Philippine government pays for their tickets.” To cope with the situation, she said, officials at the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah have been working overtime to meet the July 3 deadline set for illegal workers to rectify their status. The consulate has extended daily operations from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., and officials have been staying until 12 midnight to handle the additional load as July 3 looms. “We had to set a cutoff otherwise we cannot close anymore,” she said, adding that most people come within the working hours “because they think if they don't come before 5 (p.m.) they will not be served. “They come here because at first they thought only those camped outside can be repatriated. But we told them you don't have to camp outside. We will repatriate everybody who registers. We continuously assure our people that we will not go home until we have finished all related paperwork,” she said. Since April, longer lines than usual have been forming outside the consulate. “This is not the regular scenario here but we're trying to cope,” she said. They are also trying to streamline the process so that Filipinos need not line up outside the consulate under the sun all day.
“We try to improve our system every day based on the needs that we see. We saw our people were suffering from the heat so we set up a tent,” she said. The tent inside the Consulate has been operational since Monday to provide shade for those in the queue. Also, officials have devised a scheduled system to facilitate releasing of documents. Usudan said workers need to write their names on a slip of paper, drop it into the appropriate box, and just come back at a certain time in the afternoon to pick up their processed documents. For example, surrendered passports are issued at 4 p.m. while travel documents at 5 p.m. Even with such a scheme, however, the schedules are sometimes impossible to follow since the consulate also has regular Filipino workers to serve, Usudan said. “We also have to be flexible because we cannot turn our people away. We cannot prejudice our regular clients who need assistance with affidavits, SPA (special power of attorney), marriage licenses, the usual renewal of passports — the legal workers with employers.” She said the consulate also needs to attend to those who report births, regular labor cases, the dead who need to be repatriated, plus non-Filipinos applying for visas to the Philippines and labor contracts. The consulate is using only four computers for the processing, with two in the newly set up tent and two inside the building to split up the work, she said. They have already requested additional machines from Manila. Usudan said the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila has also created a special team just for Jeddah and Riyadh to accommodate the additional requests, and four are due to arrive here soon. “All these ones who are processing their passports would want to transfer. Those who have passports have no problem because after they have renewed these, we stamp immediately for free and extend the passport validity for one year,” she said. From the consulate, those with valid passports can then proceed to the Saudi Passports Department (Jawazat) and the Saudi Labor Office for the transfer (provided they have found new sponsors and employers), she said. “Unfortunately for those who have lost their old passports or those whose passports are with their original sponsors, they will have to wait for the new passports from Manila. Without it, they cannot transfer,” she said. However, passport renewal, which would normally take 30 days, has been reduced to two weeks. “It takes some time before the passport can come back. We process them here but the biometrics are sent through the Internet to Manila where they are processed. After processing they will have to send the passport back to Jeddah,” she said. Usudan added that they are also hoping for an extension of the grace period. “We don't want to gamble and tell our people that there might be (an extension) so we are sticking to the July 3 deadline. We're trying to speed up everything for them to be able to transfer on time,” Usudan said. The officials had originally planned to set up an extension office for passport processing as well as to serve as shelter for those who wanted to move from the camp beside the consulate. However, they had difficulty finding a separate building whose landlord would agree to house irregular workers. “We've settled with settling the women upstairs,” Usudan said, adding there were more than 100 ladies and children in the shelter inside the consulate. “There are those who come in the morning and go home at night. Some of them want to go home because they have places to stay. Some of those from Riyadh already stay in. However, the men have to stay outside (the consulate),” she said. Around 15-20 people, most of whom are spouses of consular staff, have volunteered as marshals who are in the premises on most days to assist. The consulate has also requested to beef up security with additional diplomatic police to help control the crowd and guard the gates.
