No need for anti-Chinese hysteria — Locsin

Chinese workers are not grabbing jobs from Filipinos, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said yesterday.

“Take it easy. Chinese workers are granted visas upon arrival under the program implemented by the immigration bureau and do not take jobs from Filipinos,” Locsin posted on Twitter.

He made the statement after former president Benigno Aquino III called for a review of the influx of Chinese workers in the country.

“They are working in online gaming that requires Mandarin,” Locsin said. “They are poor people like ours abroad.”

The Senate committee on labor chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva is looking into the arrival of illegal foreign workers in the country.

In 2018 alone, the Department of Foreign Affairs recorded some 1.6 million Chinese tourist arrivals and issued only 18 employment visas.

Malacañang shrugged off Aquino’s concern about the number of Chinese workers in the Philippines, saying there is nothing alarming about it as long as they enter the country legally.

Meanwhile, a militant labor group sought an alliance with Chinese workers to demand better employment conditions.

“We can have an alliance to forward calls for immediate relief amid rising prices of basic commodities and services and to push for long-term economic reforms,” Kilusang Mayor Uno vice chair Elizar Diayon said.

He said Filipino workers should strengthen relations with owners of FilipinoChinese small and medium businesses operating in the country.

“What we want is a positive environment that is beneficial to workers of Fil-Chinese enterprises in the country,” Diayon said.