Dubai: A guide book for Filipino expatriates will soon be released to help them better prepare for their future and avoid getting on the wrong side of the law due to lack of awareness.
Gulf Law, in cooperation with the Philippine embassy, plans to hand out the 150-page guide book for free to Filipino expatriates in the UAE this year itself. The book will provide practical answers to common questions and detail step-by-step processes that have to be followed to meet various requirements whether they be for overseas employment, financial literacy, obtaining proper documents, or in case people get into trouble, among others.
“The book will provide essential information starting from pre-migration to the pre-departure orientation seminar to arrival in the host country to their return to their country. So it covers the full cycle of migration,” Grace Princesa, Philippine ambassador to the UAE, told Gulf News.
Princesa said she wants the book to be part of her legacy to the Filipinos in the UAE before she leaves her post in October this year. The guide book also supports her advocacies on migration, development, financial literacy, reintegration, and “knowing the life and shadows of overseas labour migration.”
Attorney Barney Almazar, a licensed UAE legal consultant and partner at Gulf Law and co-author of the book, said many of the questions that were answered in the book were collated from their free legal aid sessions and seminars held in the Philippine embassy and consulate-general throughout 2014 that saw 4,000 Filipinos in attendance.
It will specifically target the major issues Filipinos face in the UAE that are easily summed up by the ‘five Is’ — indebtedness, intoxication, immorality or illegal affairs, illegal recruitment, and improper documents, Almazar said.
“It addresses concerns like what to do if you have a police case, it tackles the main difference between a limited and unlimited contract, how to get help from the Central Bank, how to get a birth certificate, to name a few,” Almazar said.
