Dole wants travel tax removed from OFW tickets

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III (Photo by ANTHONY Q. ESGUERRA/INQUIRER.net)

The Department of Labor and Employment (Dole) has directed airline companies to stop incorporating travel taxes and terminal fees in the tickets issued to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III wrote the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP) to stress that OFWs are exempted from paying travel taxes and terminal fees.

In his letter to the CAAP director general, Jim Sydiongco, Bello said the said fees were still being included in the cost of the airline tickets issued to OFWs.

“While some OFWs were refunded these fees at the airport prior to their departure, most of them were not refunded because of lack of awareness about this privilege or lack of time to process their claim for refund,” he said.

Bello asked the CAAP to make the necessary representation to concerned government offices in various airport terminals to cease and desist from collecting tax and terminal fees from OFWs.

He cited Presidential Decree No. 1183 and Republic Act No. 8042 or the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipino Act of 1995, which exempts OFWs from paying the said taxes and fees.

The Dole secretary also ordered the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to coordinate with the CAAP and Manila International Airport Authority to come up with a mechanism for the automatic exemption of OFWs in paying travel taxes and terminal fees.