PDOS Seminar

Last Monday, 25 April 2016, we attended our Pre-Departure Orientation Seminar (PDOS) conducted by Commission on Filipinos Overseas (CFO). This is a mandatory seminar required by the Philippine Government for Filipino emigrants to prepare them for settlement overseas. This is mandated through Batas Pambansa Bilang 79 and a fee of Php400.00 per person is collected for payment of a sticker stamped on our passport as shown below:

An emigrant is different to that of an immigrant. Emigrants are those individuals who did not land yet on their destination country and that they have the right to migrate to other country. Immigrants are those who already landed in their destination country with privilege to migrate to other country. The speaker says that right and privilege are two different words and that having only the privilege would sometime have a negative effect. which is, being an immigrant can be taken out from you if and when you do not follow your duties and responsibilities given by your host country.

Anyway, to attend for a PDOS, especially here in Manila, an emigrant is required to register online to get a schedule. Note that CFO is strictly implementing a no schedule, no PDOS policy. So, it is highly advise that an emigrant has a ready visa and that you did not book a flight yet.  Ours is a total opposite. We do not have a visa yet and, yes, we already have a scheduled flight. Good thing, God answered our prayers. Why? Because if you have read my previous posts, the return of our passports took more than a month from submission to VFS Global. We received our passports with visa stamped on it on a Thursday (21 April 2016) and a Monday (25 April 2016) for our PDOS. We are one lucky couple, LOL.

So, if you already have a visa, you need to register HERE. Click on "I already have my immigrant visa and I wish to register with CFO". Like I have said, we still do not have a visa but time here is our dilemma because we do have a booking. See, this has been stressing us for the past days and weeks. I even emailed CFO to give us a slot for the PDOS Seminar but no reply. What I did, I went on to register and one problem I faced is that it is asking for a Visa Number, oh my heart. I tried to enter 123456 and a date, LOL, and it went through. Then there goes our schedule PDOS seminar, hahaha. Please do not attempt to do what we did to avoid additional dilemma and anxiety on your part. I know it is a very desperate move and you may end up not as lucky as we are. We are just thankful, all went okay.

Note that I did not printed our online registration form. Only the schedule with a barcode. In addition, you must also register your husband or common law partner. At the seminar, I was stubbornly telling my husband, what will they do on the wrong visa number. I tried to correct it but I cannot go through. So when the CFO staff called our number, I was relieved that he corrected the error I "intentionally", LOL, put on our registration forms.

During the seminar, the speaker talked mostly what CIIP seminar discussed. They only added on forms you need to fill when you are (1) bringing more than USD/CAD10,000.0, and (2) goods to bring and goods to follow. I will discussed these on my next posts. The seminar starts at 9:30 AM for Canada emigrants but we are required to go at CFO 2 hours before the seminar. It is a 2 1/2 hour seminar but ours is at 3 hours. After the seminar, they will release the passports with a PDOS sticker stamped on it and a booklet as shown below:

The booklet contains mostly of what is discussed during the seminar. I know we need to read and read but my mind is not already absorbing the reading thing. Even the blogging is just a so-so, hahaha, I think I am just excited and the separation anxiety is now at its maximum level. So please bare with the postings.

One very important learning we learned during the seminar is about our Social Security System (SSS) contributions. It is not true that our SSS contributions are of no use to immigrants like us, since it is not withdrawable. The speaker told us that our SSS contributions can be combined to our Canada Pension Plan (CPP). He told us that Canada and Philippines has a bilateral agreement that SSS and CPP can be consolidated. We just need to complete the 120 contributions, number of contributions required for Filipinos to avail of SSS pension. Wow, my husband and I will attend to our SSS when we come home after 3 or 5 years.

So, done with our PDOS. Stress and anxiety went on vacation now. I think the crying mode is set to land in our system anytime soon. Thy will be done Oh Lord, according to Your will.