Filipino’s Guide to: Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC) for Direct Hires

In this article, I’ll talk about how to legally depart from the Philippines as a Direct Hire (also referred to as “name-hire”) Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). I’m primarily writing this in the context of moving to Germany for work, but this can apply regardless of which country you’ll be working in.

The information here was also most valid for Jan-Aug 2018; some mechanics may have changed since then. For more Germany-specific advice, you can read Part 1 for the guide on the National Visa, and Part 3 for the checklist of government things to do after landing in Germany as a resident.

Part 2: OEC from POEA

The OEC process is designed to offer protection to OFWs, ensuring that they are documented properly and leave the Philippines healthy and informed.

If you don’t have your OEC and they ask for it at Philippine immigration, you might not be permitted to leave the country. That said, Germany will not look for your OEC when you enter.

As a direct hire OFW, I didn’t use a Philippine recruitment agency to secure my job offer. There is a national ban on direct hires, but it’s possible to ask the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) for an exception. This exception (called “POEA Clearance”) is applied for by POEA when you apply for an OEC. You won’t need to deal with DOLE separately.

For alternative guides to the OEC process for direct hires, check out OFW Money, Balikbayad PH, and a guide that my friend Ayra wrote.

Required Documents

Below, you’ll find the list of required documents to submit for the OEC. As you’ll see from the marks on the page, POEA is extremely particular about checking each box (if it applies to you). They’ll encircle anything you don’t have and ask you to come back when you have it. My advice is: don’t question it and just submit what they ask for.

An additional document you’ll need for Phase 2 is your OFW eRegistration Info Sheet, which should be filled out and printed from the POEA eServices portal. I suggest you accomplish this at home. It’s possible to do this at POEA itself, but the lines are very long.

The Process

1st visit/Phase 1

There’s no appointment system for the Direct Hire Department of POEA. It’s walk-in basis only, so come as soon as you have your visa and required documents.

I made the mistake of scheduling an appointment under the “Balik-Manggagawa Online Processing System”, which was the wrong portal. This mistake caused a 3-day delay in my visiting POEA.

What POEA does during Phase 1 are i) check if you have the above Phase 1 documents, and ii) create your application to be sent to DOLE for approval. This takes 1–2 hours if you have complete documents. You can expect to leave POEA with a copy of the accomplished checklist and instructions to wait for POEA Clearance. POEA’s Notice Board is updated regularly with the clearances.

Interim Phase

It takes around 7 working days for POEA Clearance to be given. During this waiting time, you can get the following:

• “Fit to work” Medical Certificate
• Pre-Employment Orientation Seminar (PEOS) certificate
• POEA eRegistration Info Sheet

2nd visit/Phase 2

Once you have the Clearance, print the POEA Notice that states your name and go back to the POEA for Phase 2. This phase takes 6–7 hours.

• Step 1: “Check-in” at the Direct Hire Department and get your application form for the Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS)
• Step 2: Attend the in-person PDOS and claim your certificate right after the seminar. If you’re at the POEA Main Office, they have free, walk-in PDOS daily. Just ask (preferably during Phase 1) what time the PDOS is for your country of work. For OFWs bound for Europe, if I remember correctly, the daily schedule is 9:30am.
• Step 3: Go back to the Direct Hire Department, submit your Phase 2 documents, and wait for them to issue your OEC in the next hour
• Step 4: Pay for your OEC, PhilHealth and PAG-IBIG fees at the cashier in the Direct Hire Department

Advice regarding some required documents

Authenticated work contract

A lot of people don’t do this step before visiting POEA and end up getting delayed. This can and should be done even before you receive your visa! It takes 1–2 weeks.

Below are the steps I followed to get my contract authenticated by the Philippine Embassy in Berlin. There’s a “chain authentication” that’s followed, which basically means that there are three steps:

1. Get your and your employer’s signatures notarized by a German Notar. I called several Notars (check this directory) and set an appointment. My employer and I appeared at the law office with our IDs, and the Notar verified our identities (this step might be difficult if you’re physically not in the same city as your employer). This can be done either before or after the contract is signed. It took only 15 minutes, then I picked up the notarization the next day. There’s a standard, government-mandated fee for this so it doesn’t matter which law office you choose. Mine cost ~EUR 50.
2. Get the signature of the Notar authenticated by the Court where the Notar is registered. You can visit the Court on a walk-in basis, and proceed to the Apostille section. I arrived 15 minutes before the office opened in the morning and I was 5th in line. Inside the room, they got my documents and asked me to pay a small fee (I think it was EUR 15). I picked up the authenticated contract a couple of days later.
3. Finally, bring your work contract to the Philippine Embassy for authentication. This is also when they check if the Philippine-required clause on repatriation is in your contract. I paid EUR 22.50 and picked it up the next day. There’s a chance that Germany now uses the POLO in Geneva; I’m not sure how long it will take to authenticate your work contract with them.

For those getting job offers after Feb 2018, I believe you now need to go through the POLO in Geneva for contract authentication. You don't need to be physically in Germany to do this, but I highly recommend you call the POLO to understand what the process is.

Additional advice:

1. The POEA requires that certain information and clauses are covered in your contract. Make sure that before you sign your contract, these have been accounted for. The list is here.
2. Make sure that your employer has given you a bilingual work contract (German and English versions) because the Philippine embassy will only accept it with the English version. It doesn’t need to be a certified translation which costs thousands of euros to process. In my case, my contract has a “convenience translation” in English.

OFW insurance

POEA requires all OFWs to be covered by insurance in the event of death, sickness and other circumstances in their country of work. Since the coverage requirements are so specific (e.g., repatriation of remains), a handful of insurance providers (e.g., Paramount Life & General Insurance, MAPFRE Insular, etc.) have created a specific “OFW insurance” product. These can be purchased for ~USD 30 per year.

I suggest that you purchase an OFW insurance product to make Phase 1 easier for you. You won’t have to explain that your employer or your private insurance has promised to cover repatriation, etc. This is separate from the health insurance you need for your application at the German Embassy.

Pre-Employment Orientation Seminar (PEOS)

The PEOS is different from the PDOS. The PEOS is done online, here, and takes ~1 hour to complete. You can do this even before Phase 1. You’ll need to print the certificate afterward. On the other hand, the PDOS is done in-person, for ~3 hours during Phase 2.

“Fit to work” medical certificate

The POEA has a list of Department of Health (DOH)-accredited clinics for the OFW medical screening (unfortunately, the linked list is the most updated version). They have a specific format and set of tests for the OFW’s “fit to work” medical certificate, so it’s important that you go to an accredited clinic. In my experience, the tests took 3–4 hours of an afternoon and I picked up my results the next afternoon.

Initially, I considered using my yearly executive check-up results, but even that doesn’t cover some tests that the OFW medical screening requires (e.g., psychological test, HIV screening). Again, I suggest you don’t question the requirements and just get them done so you can get out of the country.

This is the end of Part 2.