1st Qatar visa center in PH shows ‘desire’ for OFWs

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MANILA, Philippines — The Qatar government’s move to open its first visa center in the Philippines highlighted the Arab nation’s “growing desire” for having a Filipino workforce, its top diplomat to Manila said.

At the inauguration of the Qatar Visa Center Wednesday, Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Philippines Ali Ibrahim Al-Malki said the opening of the facility reflects his country’s “great interest” in strengthening his country’ bilateral relations with the Philippines.

“The importance of the opening of this Center today is the result of Qatar’s policy that aims to enhance the labor relations to the Philippines, as well as the ties among its people. We send them for work to a brighter future,” he said in a press briefing.

“The primary goal of Qatar Visa Center is to simplify and expedite all the procedures for acquiring entry visa to Qatar either for work or residence purpose,” he added.

The visa center, which is directly supervised by the government of Qatar, will serve as a one-stop shop for Filipino applicants.

“This will be easier for them, they will process everything in one place. They don’t have to go anywhere,” Al-Malki said.

Aside from an expedited visa application process, Filipinos applying for a work visa will also be able to thoroughly review their employment contract.

During the process, the contract terms will be explained to an applicant.

“This visa center it will facilitate definitely in a very quick manner the processing of all the document of our workers and it becomes now very transparent in a way that before a worker leaves for Qatar, he knows everything about the agreement that he’s entering into,” presidential adviser on overseas Filipinos Abdullah Mama-o told reporters after the facility’s inauguration.

“If there is any problem, we could immediately check [it] with our office — the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration — so this will definitely be one good thing for the welfare and interest of our overseas Filipino workers,” he added.

Filipino labor presence in Qatar

According to Al-Malki, the number of Filipinos working in the Gulf nation continued to increase.

“We can say every month they’re increasing the number, we have maybe one month is 500 to 600 more,” he said.

According to him, there are around 260,000 Filipinos working and living in Qatar.

Al-Malki said the opening of the visa center “assures the constant effort of the State of Qatar to provide the best decent life and appropriate work environment for the migrant workers as their presence means a significant contribution to the development of the State of Qatar.”

This developed as the Arab country had started undertaking infrastructure projects in preparation for hosting the World Cup in 2022.

“With this kind of state-of-the-art facility, you can see that they are looking at more expansion of our labor presence,” Mama-o said.

Process

As part of the visa process, the employer in Qatar will be responsible for making the visa payments in behalf of the applicant.

The employer or the applicant would then need to book an appointment online.

Upon verification of the visa applicant’s identification and after the required documents are checked, a token is issued.

The applicant will then be called up and a staff member will explain the contract terms. The visa candidate will then be asked to digitally sign his/her work contract.

After this, the applicant will undergo biometrics and mandatory medical tests.

Applicants can track their the status of their visa application online or through their employer in Qatar.

The visa center, located at the NU Mall of Asia Building in Pasay City, will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

/atm