OFWs in Taiwan Writes Letter to Duterte to lift the travel ban imposed to Taiwan

Many OFWs and the Filipino community in Taiwan sent a request to Manila on Thursday to lift the travel ban to Taiwan for Filipinos.

A minimum of 400 OFWs employed by a Taiwanese manufacturing company expressed their appeal through a letter addressed to the President of the Philippines. On the other hand, the Filipino community in Taiwan shared their request through a video with signed papers.


Jack Cheng, one of the senior advisers of IMEI Foods company, stated that 410 OFWs had affixed their signatures in an appeal letter addressed to the President of the Philippines.

According to Cheng, the OFWs in Taiwan are taking the shifts of their fellow OFWs who went on vacation to the Philippines and were caught on the dilemma of being prohibited to enter Taiwan due to the travel ban imposed by the Philippine government.

In the letter of appeal of the OFWs, they asked the
President to allow them to enter Taiwan for work and to accomplish their working contracts in Taiwan.

According to Cheng, the OFWs sent their letter to the Philippines through the MECO. Cheng also revealed that there is an uncertain number of OFWs stranded in the Philippines bound to Taiwan. IMEI only hires Overseas Filipino Workers and does not hire other foreign nationality workers.


The appeal included a statement saying that the OFWs of Taiwan fears that Taiwan may opt to hire other nationalities instead of Filipinos due to the travel ban issue.

Taiwan had expressed their opinion in being included in the travel ban including mainland China, Macau, and Hong Kong. The travel ban was a preventive measure of the threat of the Novel Coronavirus epidemic.

Taiwan was offended after finding out that the basis of the Philippines in including Taiwan in the travel ban was the ‘One-China’ policy. This policy states that the country of Taiwan is part of China.
Taiwan clears that it is not a part of China. However, Salvador Panelo, the spokesperson of President Duterte, stated that the travel ban decision was based primarily on health issues.


Cheng had assured the Philippine government that Taiwan is a safe place to work. He shared how Taiwan has only 18 cases of the Wuhan virus and most of them had already recovered. He assured that they had the epidemic under control. He even assured that they had it in better control compared to Japan and Singapore.

Cheng shared how IMEI values OFWs for their kindness, diligence, and good communication skills.