CFO........... Commission on Filipinos Overseas...

Ooops sorry for the mistyped words *autocorrect in mobile sucks*! Grrroar! Btw yes i am planning to travel to UK on 28th via PAL

Just a word of warning. Sometimes the CFO refuse the sticker first time around, pending further information.

Even if I have already issued a visa?

Yes. You cant get the final CFO sticker until you get your visa. But you cant leave the Philippines until you get the CFO sticker. My wife didnt have to go back to the CFO but some of her friends had to, to get extra information.

Ohhh i see! Thank u sir!

JohnAsh, what do you mean by "extra information"?

I have the CFO certificate already but not yet the sticker since I am not leaving the Philippines yet and have had no problems leaving the country.

Have you been through the seminar / interview bit? If so you will probably be okay. But to answer your question, they have a tendency to ask for information that they dont tell you that they want, before you attend.

This can vary, evidently. It tends to be stuff such as husbands divorce papers, photo of you both together, husbands full address etc etc. if you dont know it then you have to come back another day with it. A couple of my wifes friends had to visit them again as they didnt have a copy of their husbands divorce papers with them the first time around.

If you don't have all the stickers etc then if you are leaving the Philippines on a settlement type visa then they can and do stop filipinas from leaving which can be a shocker if you haven't got a flexible ticket. It affects those emmigrating for settlement rather than a filipina going on vacation abroad.

From what I gather, some people have discovered this the hard way.

the curve balls tend , in Cebu to be during the seminar we had quiet a bit of texting back and forth when the missus was doing hers we never got the passport sticker as the nuns issued it for the wrong country

JohnAsh, I have the certificate but not the sticker yet as I need to show them my spousal visa first. To be honest, it's a lot of rubbish, didn't really learn much from the seminar and the interview was blah, mine took 5 minutes though some people took longer.

They advised me to get the certificate even if I will be just going on vacations, I was never asked about it so no worries so far. I was stressing about it since I leave the Philippines 4-6x a year and they said that I can be barred from leaving the country without the CFO thing.

Yes. One is taking a risk by not having it. So it is safest to get it.

I know, the whole thing is a bit of a waste of time. Though some feel it isnt a bad thing.

Like Keith, my wife had to text me for info while she was there.

This was a few years ago now, maybe it has improved......

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/102817-cfo-manila-anyone-have-bad-experience-at-prism/

I don't really have any inclination to go into the CFO requirements and usefulness.
It's enough to say that without that all important passport 'sticker' there's a very high risk of being trned down for exit by Philippine
immigration.
It's not needed for tourist travel, but anyone who has a settlement route visa in their passport or even a working visa in their passport
will virtually 100% be challenged by immigration. No 'sticker' means no travel. The risks are too high these days IMHO
Get that CFO 'sticker'. Period.

My husband was away at work when I did it and the questions are pretty generic so I didn't need his help. But the lady typing my info was a bit hard headed as she can't understand that I am hyphenating my husband's surname.

It is a requirement but I hope that they can have a better seminar about it because the things they tell you are pretty generic and is more of a pre-marriage seminar. Also, all Europeans wives and husbands are grouped together unlike the US, Canada and Japan that has a specific group.

your refering to Manila Blue Cebu is a different can of worms

So tell me, how is it different in Cebu?

Cebu is run by Nuns who get vicarious pleasure from embarasing/scaring our wives there personal experience of course of marriage and life abroad is zero they are as geographicaly challenged as the majority lol

They couldnt understand we were going to settle in Portugal since I had a UK passport and have no concept of "Europe" or its implications so even though I sent our address to be in Portugal they issued a certificate for exiting to the UK

Whilst the missus was there a friend of ours who had married a yank was thoughly humiliated when they refused to accept her as going to the states as her husband had had a previous fiance ,(who had done the course with them and then later decided not to go) they wanted his wife to locate her and then for them to be interviewed together she freaked and the result was she didnt go to the states either

Isn't SMEF COW run by nuns too? Seems to have that ring about it...

Great name that SMEF COW!

"After the group process, the counselor 3# told us that we will have our individual counselling. She asked us to fill out our forms again correctly and to step out of the room and wait to be called for our counselling. She just asked me how me and my fiance met, all our meetings, when, where and for how long, details on the wedding. She also asked questions about my fiance family, that also included knowing his mother maiden name and she wanted a to see a copy of his divorce papers. She also reviewed and prepared me for the Visa interview process. "

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/351554-commission-on-filipinos-overseas-cfo-manila/

One persons take on the process in Manila. Which is pretty much how it went with my wifes visit.

My wife went to St. Mary's in Cebu and it was a huge hassle. The nuns made a concerted effort to discourage all of the candidates from marrying foreigners. My wife was picked out for special scorn since I have been divorced a couple of times. They gave her the run around where she had to call me and get this info, then that info, all the way back to the internet cafe 3 or 4 times for copies, and new information.
They caused her to have to stay the night in Cebu and all the extra expenses that entails just to satisfy their own biases. The next morning she just wizzed right through. Different nun? I don't know, but it made zero sense to me.

This was especially irritating since we were already married. The horse had already left the barn, so convincing her not to marry me was a moot point.

It was related to me of another case where the fiance had gotten so mad at the nun for the run around that he had his fiancee put the nun on the phone and he chewed her #### out royally, but in the end the fiancee was denied and the guys wife never saw the filipina again. So I guess you have to suck it up and keep your mouth shut, but if I had to do it all over again I would go through PRISM in Manila.

There is a growing group who believe you shouldn't use St. Mary's in Cebu at all, and if you're in Manila and have a choice then PRISM is the best choice but it sounds like SM's wasn't too bad in Manila. But if you have a choice why not take the path of least resistance?

Another persons take....this time Cebu.