President Aquino (more casually known as PNoy) paid us a visit here in New Zealand early this week, which surprisingly resulted to three new bilateral agreements between NZ and Philippines. I'm not going into details but one of the three agreements has been of great interest to me and at the same time caught a lot of attention back home.
I have heard about Working Holiday Scheme ages ago, what it was for, how to and who can apply for it. New Zealand is just one of the countries that has agreement with other nations to offer this visa to their citizens. Needless to say, most of them are developed, first-world countries, sort of an exclusive club if you may, which I never thought our country would be part of.
The intention of this scheme is to allow young citizens (18-30 years old) of one country to take holidays in foreign country for an extended period of time (1 year mostly) for cultural exchange purposes and at the same time have opportunity to spend at most three months on short-term employment to supplement their travel funds or take classes/training for the same period. There will be a limit of 100 visas that each country can issue per year.
No details about NZ-PH agreement is available at the moment but there should be little difference compared to existing agreements with other countries. According to this article online, first visa will be issued by 2013.
To be part of an agreement like this is unprecedented in our history, a definite step up of our country's reputation as illegal immigrants. It's like being finally accepted to be a member of an exclusive club, albeit still on basic membership plan! Lol. But it's a start.. a good start because according to the the correspondence I found from this link between NZ Minister of Trade Tim Groser and Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Robert Romulo, it was in fact NZ who initiated the negotiation back in 2009.
As news starts to spread like wildfire, what worries me is how media communicates this information to the public, the impact to existing problems in human trafficking and potential abuse to this privilege.
"Pwede na daw pong makapagtrabaho ang mga Pilipinong turista sa New Zealand."
While the statement is technically correct, it's very broad and may be misunderstood as something people can use as pathway to gain permanent work in NZ. It's also NOT true that you can take continuous employment for one year, yes you can stay for one year, but each employment (for every company) must not exceed three months. It's important to be clear that while you can be employed, for 12 months, it must be for 4 different employers. We don't want the fly-by-night immigration agents telling victims that they can find permanent work on this type of visa and end up being deported when visa expires. Sabi nga nila "Walang manloloko, kung walang magpapaloko".
Another concern would be those who intend to come on this visa and breach it, in short mag-TNT. I wouldn't want us to be part of this list.
More information will be available about NZ-PH specific on NZ immigration website. In the meantime, more information can be found here.
Be informed and inform others!
**Update** - February 8, 2014
On January 31, NZ immigration website was updated with the details of the working holiday visa agreement with Philippines. Starting Feb 5, 2014, they will start accepting applications for this visa allowing only 100 slots from each country.
Several minutes after the website opened at 10AM NZST (5AM PHT), all of the 100 visa slots have already been used up. The new quote for 2015 will open again on February of next year.
Details of the agreement is found in NZ immigration website.
The intention of this scheme is to allow young citizens (18-30 years old) of one country to take holidays in foreign country for an extended period of time (1 year mostly) for cultural exchange purposes and at the same time have opportunity to spend at most three months on short-term employment to supplement their travel funds or take classes/training for the same period. There will be a limit of 100 visas that each country can issue per year.
No details about NZ-PH agreement is available at the moment but there should be little difference compared to existing agreements with other countries. According to this article online, first visa will be issued by 2013.
To be part of an agreement like this is unprecedented in our history, a definite step up of our country's reputation as illegal immigrants. It's like being finally accepted to be a member of an exclusive club, albeit still on basic membership plan! Lol. But it's a start.. a good start because according to the the correspondence I found from this link between NZ Minister of Trade Tim Groser and Philippine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Robert Romulo, it was in fact NZ who initiated the negotiation back in 2009.
As news starts to spread like wildfire, what worries me is how media communicates this information to the public, the impact to existing problems in human trafficking and potential abuse to this privilege.
"Pwede na daw pong makapagtrabaho ang mga Pilipinong turista sa New Zealand."
While the statement is technically correct, it's very broad and may be misunderstood as something people can use as pathway to gain permanent work in NZ. It's also NOT true that you can take continuous employment for one year, yes you can stay for one year, but each employment (for every company) must not exceed three months. It's important to be clear that while you can be employed, for 12 months, it must be for 4 different employers. We don't want the fly-by-night immigration agents telling victims that they can find permanent work on this type of visa and end up being deported when visa expires. Sabi nga nila "Walang manloloko, kung walang magpapaloko".
Another concern would be those who intend to come on this visa and breach it, in short mag-TNT. I wouldn't want us to be part of this list.
More information will be available about NZ-PH specific on NZ immigration website. In the meantime, more information can be found here.
Be informed and inform others!
**Update** - February 8, 2014
On January 31, NZ immigration website was updated with the details of the working holiday visa agreement with Philippines. Starting Feb 5, 2014, they will start accepting applications for this visa allowing only 100 slots from each country.
Several minutes after the website opened at 10AM NZST (5AM PHT), all of the 100 visa slots have already been used up. The new quote for 2015 will open again on February of next year.
Details of the agreement is found in NZ immigration website.
