DOHA: After many years of hard work, hundreds of Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) are now looking forward to finally getting their professional licences through a special board exam to be conducted here in December by the Philippine government’s Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).

The special board exams was realised through an executive order issued by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo which will be conducted every year for qualified OFWs in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and other Middle East countries that have diplomatic relations with the Philippines.

In Qatar, the board exam hopefuls have been undergoing review classes on weekends over the past few months. The classes were made possible through the organised groups of Filipino architects, engineers and accountants.

Officials of Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants-Qatar Chapter (PICPA-Qatar) have welcomed President Arroyo’s directive saying this will finally realise their efforts to let more than half of their members become licensed accountants.

Rod Punzalan, PICPA-Qatar media coordinator, said they have lobbied for the PRC exam to be held here during President Arroyo’s visit to Qatar in December last year and since then they were conducting review classes aside from the regular seminars to upgrade the expertise of their members. “The president’s order has turned our efforts into the next level and would encourage more of our members to take their board exams,”Punzalan said.

Renante Mislang, an architect at the Petra Designs Co., said the board exam should have been done in the past but he welcomed the move because many of his colleagues who graduated a degree in architecture never had the chance to take the test after working abroad.

Mislang who has been an OFW for the last 14 years said he and about a hundred other members of United Filipino Architects in Qatar have been preparing for the December exam since they were undergoing a rigid review in the past months.

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