The government will deport Chinese workers who are found to be working here illegally, the Palace said Tuesday, dialing back on comments from the President that favored leniency to stop China from expelling thousands of Filipinos working there.
“Immigration laws will be strictly enforced against anyone who violates them,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a Palace press briefing.
But he added that the country cannot afford to be “rash and reckless” in banishing illegally employed Chinese nationals, given the number of Filipinos working illegally in China, and that due process would be observed before any deportation proceedings.
“What the President is saying, like for instance, if there are hundreds of Chinese immigrants perceived to be working illegally here, we cannot be so rash and reckless as to just deport them because the Chinese government may also react. There are 300,000 Filipinos [there],” Panelo said.
“If they are suddenly sent home, then they and their families would have a problem. That’s why we should tread cautiously,” he added.
Panelo said Chinese Ambassador Zhao Jianhua told him over dinner that if a country deported Chinese workers without due process, his government would do the same to that country’s workers in China.
A party-list congressman on Tuesday proposed that the Philippines negotiate a labor treaty with China due to the number of the nationals of each country who work in each other’s territory.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier said some 300,000 Filipinos are now working in China while there are large numbers of Chinese workers here, many of them working in casinos.
Assistant minority leader and 1-Ang Edukasyon party-list Rep. Bong Belaro suggested the crafting of a bilateral labor agreement that would lay down the bases for migrant workers relations between the Philippines and China.
“A comprehensive labor pact or even a set of different documents would be great additions to the already rich roster of bilateral agreements between the Philippines and China,” he said.
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He added the April 2018 memorandum of understanding signed in Boao, China, would be a good springboard. “A migrant labor executive agreement or even treaty would protect the welfare of Filipino workers in China, assure reciprocity and solidify people-to-people contacts between our two countries,” Belaro said.
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