December of this year have many holidays prompting offices and other establishments to be closed for almost a week. However, the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) office will still be open to be of service to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) this holiday season.

According to POEA Administrator Jennifer Manalili, the Balik-Manggagawa Processing Division in the POEA Main Office at Edsa, Mandaluyong including the ten regional and satellite offices of the agency all over the Philippines will still be open on the following dates that were earlier declared as holidays.

December 26 (Friday)

December 29 (Monday)

January 2, 2009 ( Friday)

The POEA offices will be open from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm to issue travel exit clearances (TEC) to OFWs.

Aside from the Balik-Manggagawa Processing Division of the POEA Central Office, the following POEA regional and satellite offices will be open: Poea La Union, Pampanga, Calamba City, Legaspi City, Cebu City, Iloilo City, Bacolod City, Davao

City, Cagayan De Oro City and Zamboanga City.

Travel exit clearance is one of the documents an OFW needs to be able to work overseas. Examples of TEC are Overseas Employment Certificate (OEC), E-Receipt and Multiple Travel Exit Clearance (MTEC).Manalili said that this move aims to accommodate thousand of OFWs that are returning to the Philippines for vacation and would be needing travel exit clearances to return to their host country after he Christmas season.

The POEA estimates that 50,000 OFWs would need TEC on December of this year and on January 2009.

The POEA advised returning OFWs to secure exit clearances early to avoid hassle and crowds at the POEA office.