The Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco provides Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) services to Filipino citizens in distress in the following states under its consular jurisdiction: Alaska, Northern California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Northern Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. ATN services may include welfare, repatriation, travel document issuance, and other related assistance to distressed Filipino citizens. 

One of the recurring programs of the Consulate’s ATN Section is a free legal aid clinic at the Philippine Center in San Francisco every first Friday of the month, held in partnership with the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) California Chapter.

The Consulate regularly invites the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL-WHD) to its consular outreach missions, to increase awareness on U.S. federal minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor requirements, among others.

Filipino citizens who are Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) in the above-mentioned states may seek labor- and employment-related assistance from the Migrant Workers Office (MWO) Office in Los Angeles, formerly known as the Philippine Overseas Labor Office or POLO, which covers jurisdiction over the U.S. West Coast. MWO Los Angeles is under the newly created Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) in the Philippines.

According to Philippine law, an OFW “refers to a Filipino who is to be engaged, is engaged, or has been engaged in remunerated activity in a country of which he or she is not an immigrant, citizen, or permanent resident or is not awaiting naturalization, recognition, or admission, whether land-based or sea-based regardless of status; excluding a Filipino engaged under a government-recognized exchange visitor program for cultural and educational purposes.”