Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-Yu Defends himself against Haters

The mayor of Kaohsiung, Taiwan defends himself by saying that his statement about Filipinos who are working overseas is not meant to discriminate but simply to express his opinions metaphorically.
The mayor states that when he called OFWs as "Marias" what he meant was the communication and reaction of the parents of the children who will be learning from foreigners.



The mayor of Kaohsiung said that one issue of the matter is the question of how to overcome the psychological obstacle of parents. He believes that Filipinos are good in the English language. He said that what he was worried about is that the parents would be asking the government to just hire native English speakers like Americans or Australians instead of Filipinos.

The mayor also said that even though there will be obstacles with the opinions of parents, he believes that Filipinos are advanced when it comes to foreign language. The one big problem that Taiwan will be facing is to determine how to convince the parents to believe in the abilities of the Filipinos.

He believes that Filipinos have great English teaching talents and the 90 million population of the Philippines have decades of lessons in the English language and that majority of them possess great teaching skills.



He said that the "Marias" statement was never a statement that intends to show discrimination to the OFWs in the country of Taiwan.  He states that it is merely a statement showing his worry to the reaction of the parents to Filipinos teaching their children the English language.