MANILA, Philippines — Long lines of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) at the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) offices may soon be a thing of the past after it implements online processing of overseas employment certificates (OEC).

POEA administrator Hans Cacdac said in an interview that the agency is finalizing a proposal on automating the processing of the OEC’s before they present it to the POEA governing board, which is headed by Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz.

OECs are among the documents required by the government from OFWs before they are allowed to be deployed abroad.

“We want to think outside the box in easing the burden of our legitimate OFWs in so far as the processing of their documents is concerned,” Cacdac said.

“One that we are trying to look at is processing while physically outside of POEA,” he said.

He said once the modernization plan is approved they will seek additional funds for its implementation since this is not part of POEA’s current budget allotment.

“We need to secure a budget because at the moment the current POEA 2012 budget does not have a budget for online processing. We are looking at other funding sources such as the E (electronic)-government fund,” he said.

“Perhaps it is safe to say we will have the plan approve and secure the budget during the first half of the year so second half we could work on its execution,” he said.