Filipino Migrant Workers Protest Against New POEA Guidelines in Taiwan

Around 30 overseas Filipinos and 5 Taiwanese advocates from the Labor Rights Association (LRA) joined a protest action in Taipei against the new POEA guidelines on Household Service Workers. This was done in the Chung Shan North Road area where most Filipino workers congregate during Sundays.

Migrante International Taiwan chapter organized the activity, which drew many positive responses from the public. After the short event, the group trooped to the St. Christopher's Church where the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) labor representative organized a leaders forum.

Philippine Labor Representative Reynaldo Gopez stated that Taiwan bound overseas Filipino workers and rehires are exempted from the training and assessment respectively which is stipulated in the new POEA guidelines. The reason given by Mr. Gopez is that there is already training of caretakers and domestic workers being required by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Manila. The Labor Representative added that this training is only for 10 days and costs not more than P5000.

Ramon Bultron, Managing Director of Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) countered that they will check this out with the POEA. At the same time a few hours after the forum a mother of a Filipina working in Taiwan called APMM"s coordinator in Taiwan to complain that her daughter was made to pay P1,500 as assessment fee. She refused to divulge the name of her daughter at the moment fearing that this might jeopardize her return to Taiwan. It is very clear though that there is a need to check this out with returning and newly hired migrants.

Mr. Gopez was, however, hard pressed in convincing the audience in the leaders forum on the new POEA guidelines. At times, he seemed to represent Taiwan's Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) or the placement agencies/brokers in the way he presented the basis on the need for the new POEA guidelines. He just re-echoed the Taiwanese brokers sentiments when he stated that Indonesian household workers are preferred over Filipinas because they do not speak Mandarin, complain too much or ask the assistance of different groups including NGO's when they have problems with their employers. The latter was even presented by Mr. Gopez as interference.

To the delight of the crowd, Mr. Bultron reminded the Labor Attache that NGO's would not exist in Taiwan if MECO was really doing its job to protect its workers deployed there. Mr. Gopez also admitted that the Balik Manggagawa Program of the POEA could not even be implemented for OFW's from Taiwan. So how can the no placement policy proposal from the POEA, which is stipulated in the new guidelines, be implemented if this is so? For OFW's in Taiwan who are rehired by their same employer and need to exit the island after three years of work are still required to pay the same amount of placement fee as new hires.

Most of the migrant workers just decided to leave before the forum was over because it was very clear to them that Mr. Gopez could not answer their questions convincingly. They vowed to organize a bigger protest action on March 4 and other dates to make sure that the new guidelines are scrapped#.

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