President Rodrigo Duterte may visit Beijing before the end of October, ostensibly in a bid to improve frayed relations between the Philippines and China over competing territorial claims in the South China Sea.
This was disclosed by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III in a press conference in Hong Kong on Sept 25, who also said that he was himself planning to visit Beijing this month to seek legal status for as many as 200,000 Filipinos working illegally in China.
Bello, answering a question from Gloria Cheung of the Financial Times about Filipino illegal workers on the mainland, said he wanted to visit China soon, but he would have to go to Oslo, Norway first for the resumption of peace negotiations talks with Communist rebels.
“After my visit to Oslo, I may join our President who earlier intimated to me his intention to visit China. So it would be before the end of October, unless he decides first to go to Saudi Arabia to thank the King for having been very generous and very protective of our overseas workers. If the President goes, then I go,” the labor secretary said.
He said he intended to pursue his earlier plan to visit China, maybe Beijing, “and talk to the authorities on how to legitimize the stay of our workers and at the same time look at the possibility of bringing in more workers under legitimate circumstances.”
The secretary said that two weeks before flying to Hong Kong on Sept 23, he was informed by Labor Attaché Jalilo de la Torre that there are 100,000 to 200,000 Filipino overseas workers in China.
“Of course, the news was alarming, so, my immediate reaction was to go to China and make representation with the Chinese government on how to legitimize the stay of our overseas workers there,” Bello said.
Asked by Cheung why he thought Beijing would allow Filipinos to work on the mainland despite an oversupply of domestic workers there, Bello said he believed the market was big enough to absorb the OFWs already there.
He also said the Filipino workers would not necessarily compete with locals.
"Our intention is premised on the fact that your country will always need the services of our people, otherwise we won’t be bringing in anymore new workers to your country except to look into the problems of our almost 200,000 workers there now whose stay must be legitimized,” Bello said.
