No ban on OFWs in Taiwan — Labor chief

LABOR Secretary Arturo Brion denied on Saturday that Taiwan has banned the deployment of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) starting next year. The reports of the ban was a "rumor and a pure fabrication concocted by a labor brokerage source," he added. Brion arrived last Thursday from a two-day meeting with the officials of the Taiwan Council on Labor Affairs (TCLA). Taiwan-based Labor Attache Reynaldo Gopez said the Council had "never considered freezing, restricting, or banning the introduction of [workers] from the Philippines." Brion said pariticpants at the meeting discussed fully what the Philippine government could do to ensure that no fake documents would be submitted since this is the reason that Taiwan temporarily stopped processing of the visas of the Taiwan-bound OFWs. He said Rosalinda Baldoz, chief of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), will meet with private manpower firms and th appropriate government offices to discuss ways to stop falsification of identities. The government agencies would include the National Statistics Office, Department of Foreign Affairs, Social Security System, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, and National Bureau of Investigation. He said similar actions were being conducted in Taiwan with the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, the de facto embassy in Taiwan "working closely with the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) to fast-track the system, and ensure facilitative visa applications for Filipino Taiwan-bound workers." Once the validation and verification is place, Brion said these would likely increase the deployment of Filipinos from its present 92,000 quota. "Filipino workers in Taiwan currently enjoy the biggest market share in the manufacturing of electronics, telecommunications and audio-visual products, electronic spare parts and peripherals, and electrical manufacturing," added the Labor chief. He said in August this year, about 39,148 OFWs representing 65.63 percent of the total 59,650 foreign workers in the said category. Jackson Gan, president of Pilipino Manpower Agencies Accredited to Taiwam (PILMAT), had earlier revealed that Taiwan suspended the processing of the visas of some 1,000 Taiwan-bound OFWs. Taiwan also excluded the Philippines from the 80,000 quota for 2007 following the proliferation of fake documents among the Filipino workers. Meanwhile, Brion said they were also able to convince their counterparts the possibility of hiring Filipinos farmers as well as implementating the Special Hiring Program that would eliminate the placement fees being imposed by recruiters. Both sides are studying on an experimental basis the employment of Filipino workers in the agricultural sector as well as the greater use, on Taiwan’s demand, of the existing Special Hiring Program based on a no-placement fee government-to-government deployment of workers, Brion added. - GMANews.TV