President Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday said he would tolerate the influx of Chinese workers amid criticism that they were taking jobs from Filipinos.
In his speech during the PDP-Laban campaign rally in Laguna, the President said he would allow the illegal Chinese workers because there were so many undocumented Filipino workers in China.
“Just allow the Chinese workers to work here. Let them be. Why? We have 300,000 Filipinos in China. That’s why I can’t say, ‘Oh, leave this country. We’ll have you deported’,” Duterte said.
The President then asked, “What if the 300,000 of them were asked to leave?”
According to the Philippine consulate-general in Hong Kong, there are an estimated 200,000 overseas Filipinos who have been working as domestics in China since 2016.
Duterte’s remark came after Malacañang allayed concerns that Chinese workers were taking over the jobs intended for Filipinos.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said the influx of Chinese nationals should not be a cause of concern but said the government would be “alarmed” if they arrived here through unlawful means.
Special Envoy to China Ramon Tulfo had previously described the President’s stance on illegal Chinese workers as “tolerant.”
“On the Chinese illegal workers in the country who are employed in the construction and gaming industries, Digong said the government takes a tolerant attitude,” Tulfo said, referring to the President by his nickname.
“The President said there were many Filipino workers who are illegally employed in China, but the Chinese government tolerates their stay as long as they’re not committing any crime,” he added.
Last month, former President Benigno Aquino III claimed that Chinese nationals were taking the jobs meant for Filipinos.
Vice President Leni Robredo also raised concern on the Duterte administration’s special treatment given to Chinese nationals in the country.
In November 2018, Duterte said the government must “exercise caution” if officials would push for the deportation of illegal Chinese workers, noting that Filipinos working in the China might suffer the same fate.
“If you think that you are at a loss, at a disadvantage because there are so many Chinese nationals working here, remember that we have the same equal amount of people Filipinos who are there working in China,” the President said.
Just last week, the Bureau of Internal Revenue took a step in monitoring the number of Chinese nationals working in online gaming business by requiring foreign- and local-based offshore gaming operators to register with the tax agency.
The Palace, then, commended the BIR’s move, highlighting the need to collect the right amount of corporate tax from these establishments.
The Department of Justice, meanwhile, objected to a proposal in the Senate to remove the authority to issue special work permits to foreigners from the Bureau of Immigration amid a controversy over the influx of Chinese workers in the country.
Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said there is no need for legislative action to address the problem of foreigners illegally working in the country, as suggested by Senator Joel Villanueva during the hearing of the Senate committee on labor, employment and human resources development last week.
“This issue can be addressed in a faster way without amending the law,” Guevarra said in an interview.
Guevarra made the statement even as he vowed to implement additional measures to curb the entry of illegal Chinese workers.
The DOJ chief admitted that there are loopholes in the implementation of the law covering foreign workers.
But Guevarra believed these loopholes could be plugged through closer coordination between the BI, an attached agency of the Department of Justice, and the Department of Labor and Employment.
“It’s not a question of which agency should be solely responsible for the issuance of SWPs. The issue is how to tighten up the rules on SWPs. The BI and DOLE only need to work together on this,” he said.
He cited for instance the lack of effective mechanism to monitor the status of all foreign workers in the country.
Guevarra admitted that the government is considering formulating a “negative list of short-period employment from which foreign workers should be barred” as a measure to control or limit the entry of foreign workers.
The Justice secretary said he is set to meet with Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III to discuss this matter.
He also defended the BI, saying the agency is doing its mandate to go after illegal foreign workers. He cited the relentless of arrests of illegal and undocumented foreign workers by the bureau.
Earlier, Villanueva proposed the removal from BI the authority to issue SWPs to foreigners due to the bureau’s supposed lenience in issuing the permits.
An SWP allows foreign national to work in the country for three months and could be extended for another three months. For periods longer than six months and for highly technical, specialized, supervisory and managerial jobs that cannot be fulfilled by Filipinos, foreigners are given alien employment permits by the DOLE.
READ: BI agents arrest 30 illegal Chinese workers
The senator blamed the BI for the surge of illegal Chinese workers employed in Philippine offshore gaming operations.
Villanueva said the BI has no expertise in determining whether or not job posts should be given to foreign nationals, a task he said should be left to the DOLE.
He suggested that only AEPs from DOLE should be given to foreigners for job requirements that cannot be met by local workers to ensure that the employment opportunities given to foreign workers are not being taken away from Filipinos who can do the jobs equally.
READ: ‘Chinese workers must follow PH rules’