OFW-related offices now under one roof in Taipei

Labor Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz said some 80,000 Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) stand to benefit as various OFW-related agencies can now be found in one location in Taipei, Taiwan. Baldoz on Thursday said the headquarters of Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO) will now be located in a property that also houses the offices of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA), Social Security System and Pag-Ibig Fund. The new POLO office was inaugurated on June 12 as the Philippines marked its 115th Independence Day. Baldoz said the location of the various Philippine government offices is aimed at helping Filipinos transact business more conveniently. “Our OFWs would now find a more pleasant and appropriate environment for transacting official business and availing of needed services,” Baldoz said in a news release. Tensions between PHL, Taiwan Meanwhile, POLO representative Reydeluz Conferido hopes the Philippine government's acquisition of the property in Taipei would help build the image of the country amid the tensions between the Philippines and Taiwan. A rift between the two territories arose from the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman suspected of poaching by the Philippine Coastguard in the Balintang channel on May 9 this year. “The move to the new office will lend respectability and dignity to our mission to protect our workers, hopefully in the eyes of the Taiwanese brokers and employers visiting our office,” Conferido said. He noted that they will be frugal and will spend according to priority as the office currently “lacks certain provisions.” The new POLO office is located at the 10th Floor of Building Number 309, Song-Jiang Road, Taipei City, Taiwan. It can be contacted at: Phone number: +888-2-2507-9803-4 Emergency Hotline: +886-932-218-057. Website: www.meco-labor.org.tw - Andrei Medina, VVP, GMA News