"I love Taiwan" shirts, OFWs fly to Taipei, say good pay and 'kind people' outweigh fears

MANILA, Philippines – As Taiwan and the Philippines swapped investigators on the fatal shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman off Batanes last May 9, Filipino workers flew to Taipei Monday, optimistic the incident would not adversely impact for too long the labor cooperation between two sides.

At least 17 Filipino factory workers, all wearing yellow t-shirts with "I love Taiwan" written in Chinese characters, left for stints in various Taiwanese factories onboard a China Airlines flight. Most were returning workers, deployed by J.S.Contractors.

All of them were optimistic that they would not encounter any difficulties once they arrive in Taiwan. They had been assured by their agencies of protection well in accordance with their contracts, in the face of reports over the past two weeks of supposed “attacks” and discrimination against Filipinos, ostensibly in retaliation for the killing of fisherman Hung Shih-chen. Many of the reports have been discredited by both the Taiwanese and Filipino sides.

Filipino factory worker Annalyn Atienza, 31, from Balayan, Batangas, said, "Mababait ang mga Chinese [They are kind people], I stayed for over six years." She said she heard the reports of Taiwanese supposedly harassing Filipinos, but insisted that she was confident she would not suffer any reprisals.

An exclusive report by InterAksyon.com earlier showed that most of the supposed "attacks" were either untrue, exaggerated, or out of context. Most were not connected to the Batanes shooting. They were carried out by teen gangs preying on alien workers, not necessarily Filipinos. The report also quoted experts saying there were indications that Beijing, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province and is at loggerheads with Manila over maritime territory, was fanning the flames of Taiwanese anger at Filipinos.

Atienza reflected the bottomline in Filipinos’ consideration of the risks attending deployment in Taiwan amid the imbroglio. “I have to work again in Taiwan. I cannot find a job here in the Philippines that will pay me almost P30, 000 a month,” Atienza said in Filipino.

She said OFWs decided to leave in groups and adopted a buddy system in going to and from their dormitories and factories as a precaution against possible attacks by hate groups. Still, she stressed, this was just a comfort blanket, as she really believes “hindi sila ganuon ka-salbahe [the Taiwanese are not bad].”

OWF's wearing "I Love Taiwan"  shirts in Chinese character