UAE grants 3-month amnesty for illegal foreigners

MANILA, Philippines -- The United Arab Emirates has granted a three-month amnesty for illegally-staying foreigners, including overseas Filipino workers, who can either legalize their stay in the oil-rich Gulf state or leave without any penalty, the Department of Foreign Affairs said Wednesday.

In his report to Manila, Vicente Vivencio Bandillo, acting head of post of the Philippine consulate general in Dubai, said the June 4 decision of the UAE Cabinet aims to ensure legal workers enjoy full benefits in terms of salaries, health care, and housing.

He said the Cabinet, headed by Sheik Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE, has also instructed the country’s ministries of interior and labor to work together in implementing the decision.

“The consulate anticipates that hundreds, if not thousands, of Filipinos would flock to the consulate to apply for travel documents to enable them to avail of this new goodwill gesture of His Highness Sheik Maktoum, which was last implemented in 2003,” Bandillo said.

Estimates by the Commission on Filipinos Overseas put at 20,000 the number of irregular OFWs in UAE as of December 2006. According to the CFO, a total of 311,793 Filipinos are in the UAE as of December 2006. Of that number, only 430 are permanent, 291,363 are temporary, and the rest are irregular immigrants.

Filipinos in the UAE welcomed the amnesty program, Bandillo said, adding the consulate was flooded with calls just hours after news of the amnesty came out in newspapers.

“This development would surely benefit a significant number of Filipinos in the UAE who arrived with visit visas but eventually stayed in the country illegally, as well as those who could not leave the country for fear of being apprehended by immigration authorities or could not afford to pay the fines or penalties for overstaying,” he said.

The UAE, particularly Dubai, is a favorite destination of Filipinos who go there on the pretext of being tourists but actually looking for work. - Veronica Uy, INQUIRER.net, June 06, 2007