Jobs of 1,600 Filipinos in Taiwan at Risk Over Covid-19 Travel Ban
By Ariel Fernandez and Roy Mabasa
The jobs of at least 160,000 Filipinos are at risk due to the retaliatory measures that the Taiwan government is preparing in response to what it described as an “unjustified” travel ban imposed by the Philippines over the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19).
One the retaliatory measures may be the removal of the visa-free entry for Filipinos to Taiwan where close to 500,000 Filipinos had traveled to Taiwan in 2019.
Emmanuel Geslani, migrant and recruitment consultant, citing Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) Chairman Angelito Lito Banayo, said Taiwan is on the verge of imposing against the Philippines a number of directives which ultimately will have a direct effect on the fate of our OFWs now in Taiwan and future work for aspiring Filipinos who want to work in Taiwan.
A source from Taiwan has confided to a former official of the recruiters group that the Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reportedly ordered that all Filipinos with work permits and whose name are listed will not be allowed to go to Taiwan if the “impasse” between Taiwan and the Philippines is not resolved by Feb. 14.
Taiwan electronics company owners have reportedly demanded the return of Filipinos who were on vacation and the arrival of newly hired to keep up with the production of millions of electronic products, among these are iPhone mobile phones and other Apple products.
Right now, over 6,000 Filipino workers have travel documents to return to Taiwan – 3,000 of them are new hires while the rest are vacationing workers who have been processed by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA).
Even POEA Administrator Bernard Olalia in an interview with GMA 7 admitted that 271 Filipino workers leave for Taiwan daily.
There are also reports that Taiwan factory owners are contemplating on cancelling current job orders for Filipinos and instead replace them with Vietnamese and Indonesians in the event that the travel ban is not lifted immediately. It was reported that it is now the peak season in Taiwan for the production cellphones and laptops.
Taiwan offers the highest salary for factory workers in Southeast Asia with an average of P40,000 per month plus overtime. Filipino workers in Taiwan also enjoy life, medical, and social insurances which is given back to them upon the termination of their employment.
On February 2, President Duterte announced that a travel ban would be imposed on all foreigners from China and its special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau. A week later, the DOH confirmed that visitors from Taiwan are included in the ban, a move that triggered a strong protest from Taipei.
Under the ban, travelers coming into the Philippines from those areas will not be allowed to enter the country, unless they are Filipino citizens or holders of permanent visas. Neither are Filipinos allowed to travel to those areas.
The confusion brought by the announcement of the ban against Taiwanese visitors was further compounded when Banayo rebuffed the DOH statement, saying Taiwanese are not actually banned from visiting the country, but are instead required to provide entry and exit documents showing their travel history for the past 21 days upon entry.
On Tuesday, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Manila expressed its grave concern and urged the Philippine government to immediately “correct” its decision by lifting the travel ban.
“No other countries in Asia, except the Philippines, have issued [a] travel ban on Taiwan. We urge the Philippine government to immediately correct its decision on Taiwan and remove Taiwan from the travel ban,” TECO said.
But the DOH said on Thursday that the agency is not the one that recommended the travel ban on travellers coming from Taiwan.
In a radio interview on DZMM, Health Secretary Francisco Duque III said that it was the inter-agency task force that decided on the travel ban.
“Inter-agency task force ang nagpasya nito (The Inter-agency task force decided on this),” Duque said.
The DOH secretary said the decision will be subjected to risk assessment. (With a report from Dhel Nazario)
Source: https://news.mb.com.ph