Immigration bureau’s special work permits behind Chinese labor surge

By Samuel P. Medenilla, Business Mirror, Nov 27, 2018

LAX immigration rules were blamed for the sudden surge in the number of Chinese workers in the Philippines.

During a Senate hearing on Monday, the Bureau of Immigration (BI) reported it issued special working permit (SWP) to 119,000 Chinese nationals, who entered the country using tourist visas.

This allowed the Chinese nationals to work in the country for three to six months without going through the necessary processes or being bound by restrictions from the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Meanwhile, the number of Chinese workers issued the Alien Employment Permit (AEP) by the DOLE stood at only 115,000 in the last three years.

Most of the SWP holders are Chinese and work in the Philippine Online Gaming Operations, or the so-called “Pogo,” partly validating a gaming analyst’s estimate, shared earlier with the BusinessMirror, that the surge in Chinese tourists the past year—nearly outpacing the Koreans who comprise Manila’s top tourist market—was rooted in the remarkable expansion of the Pogo sector.

The analyst told the BusinessMirror that the glaring gap between the number of AEPs issued by DOLE, at 25,000 and the number of Chinese tourists masked the real number of Chinese workers in the country, and that the number of those in the gaming sector could actually be nearer to 300,000.

The influx of many Chinese workers became the focus of an inquiry by the Senate Labor committee chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva after DOLE officials discovered that dozens of Chinese nationals were working on Chinese-funded infrastructure projects without the requisite DOLE permits.

Full test

The AEP is a mandatory requirement for foreigners, who would like to work in the country for more than six months. The document, which can be obtained once a foreigner is already in the country, will allow a foreigner to apply for a work visa at the BI.

Labor Undersecretary Ciriaco Lagunzad III, who appeared at the Senate Labor committee hearing, said the labor-market test ensures only highly skilled and technical positions like supervisors, engineers and architects are given to foreigners.

“We like to reassure that if we will issue the AEP anyway, no Filipinos will be deprived [of a job],” Lagunzad told reporters in an ambush interview.

Unlike the immigration bureau’s SWP, applicants for the AEP must go through the labor-market test, wherein their names will be published on newspapers. They will only be given the AEP if no local worker contests their application.

Lagunzad said SWP holders do not fall under the jurisdiction of DOLE since they are technically considered as tourists and their stay is temporary.

Large discrepancy

Villanueva, the chief of the Senate Committee on Labor, Employment, and Human Resources, expressed concern over the large discrepancy between the SWP and AEP issuance.

He noted the BI should have no jurisdiction in issuing work permits since only DOLE has the “technical knowledge” to assess if allowing foreigners to work here will be detrimental for local workers.

Other than these registered foreign nationals, Villanueva said there could actually be more than 200,000 illegal Chinese nationals based from the reports they have received from Pasay City, Makati, Muntinlupa and Caraga.

“Again numbers don’t lie and our eyes don’t lie. We see the influx of Chinese nationals and foreign nationals who are working in the country. No one would contest how they would enter the country as tourists to be employed,” Villanueva said.

He said his committee is now reviewing the possible legislative remedial measures or interventions from Malacañang to remove the power of BI in issuing work permits.

Aggressive inspection

Amid concerns over the growing number of foreign workers in the country, especially in the Pogo, the DOLE is set to start the “mapping” of foreign workers in Metro Manila in the coming days.

“We already talked with Pagcor [Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.] We will start the mapping this week or next week first in NCR [National Capital Region] with the coordination of our regional office,” Bureau of Local Employment [BLE] Director Dominique R. Tutay said in an ambush interview.

Foreign workers identified to have no permits during the course of the mapping may face deportation.

Lagunzad said they will also make AEP validation a top priority for their labor law compliance officers, when they conduct their inspections starting next year.

“For next year we will have a special attention on this issue because this is an emerging and significant problem…we may have to re-calibrate our inspection strategy and put more people to check this out,” Lagunzad said.

The labor official said they will intensify their effort to make their labor-market test more visible to the public so more local workers could scrutinize the AEP applications.

“We feel the publication is insufficient and there has to be an extra effort. We just like to make sure that all efforts are exhausted,” Lagunzad said.