The Department of Migrant Workers on Saturday said it is ready to assist and repatriate thousands of overseas Filipino workers in Taiwan should tensions with China escalate further.
DMW Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac said the Philippine government is well prepared to evacuate Filipinos in Taiwan if it becomes necessary following China’s two-day military drills that Taipei said were a “blatant provocation to the international order.”
“We have always coordinated ourselves with the proper government agencies. Rest assured that the DMW, together with other government agencies, are prepared to assist our OFWs in Taiwan and there is already a plan on the manner by which they will be transported,” Cacdac said.
“We are ready. We stand ready – we have a contingency plan, specifically in that part of the world,” he said, adding the government has already identified “convergence points” where Filipinos in Taiwan will be secured to safety for their eventual repatriation.
DMW data showed there are around 200,000 OFWs in Taiwan.
China’s drills were launched three days after Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te took office and made an inauguration speech that China denounced as a “confession of independence.”
China, which claims Taiwan as part of its territory, regards Lai as a “dangerous separatist.”
By Friday evening, a presenter for state-run military news channel CCTV-7 said the Chinese army had “successfully completed” the operation dubbed “Joint Sword-2024A.”
In a statement, Lai’s presidential spokesperson Karen Kuo reiterated that ensuring peace and stability across the region was “related to the common interests of the international community.”
“However, China’s recent unilateral provocation not only undermines the status quo of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait but it is also a blatant provocation to the international order, triggering serious concern and condemnation from the international community,” she said.
Kuo added that Taiwan hopes “China will take the safety and happiness of the people on both sides into consideration, pursue mutual benefit, coexistence… stop all kinds of political and military intimidations on Taiwan and the region.”
Self-ruled Taiwan has its own democratically elected government, military and currency, but Beijing has said it would never renounce the potential use of force to bring the island under its control.
Chinese military analysts told state news agency Xinhua that the People’s Liberation Army vessels had inched “closer than ever before” to Taiwan’s shores during the two-day military drills.
The exercises involved simulating strikes targeting the island’s leaders as well as its ports and airports, they said. With AFP