This week on Looking South, ICRT and Eric Gau chat with Manila Economic and Trade Office Taipei Representative Angelito T. Banayo about how the Taiwan government’s New Southbound Policy could impact ties with the Philippines.

Transcript:

Eric Gau:  Good morning everyone and welcome to Looking South here on ICRT. I’m Eric Gau and today we are joined by Angelito Banayo, the representative from the Manila Economic and Cultural Office in Taiwan here on the air with us. Representative Banayo, welcome.

Angelito T. Banayo:  Thank you, thank you. I am very thankful for this opportunity to be heard by your listeners.

Eric:  We’re very thankful to have you here with us. Recently, Philippine president, Rodrigo Duterte, he voiced support for the Tsai’s administration’s new Southbound Policy, which is of course what we’re talking about here today. What sort of bilateral cooperation projects are being discussed or in the works at this time?

Angelito:  So far, there have been talks between TECO and MECO about furthering our relationship, to strengthen the relationship in view of the new Southbound Policy of President Tsai Ing‑wen.

Specifically, we have certain memoranda of agreement and memoranda of understanding that are now pending in the office of our president for final approval.

I hope to be able to wrap this up in the first quarter of 2017. In fact, I’m seeing the president precisely to report to him about the relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines and the potentials of the new Southbound Policy. There are also several investment opportunities that are on the pipeline.

We have talked to some very, shall we say, big businessmen in Taiwan who have expressed interest to support the new Southbound Policy by way of looking at the Philippines as an investment option.

Eric:  President Duterte himself visited Taiwan this past January and he called on various Philippine government bodies to pursue closer ties with their Taiwan counterparts. I’m sure we’ve already touched on that, but what areas of Taiwanese expertise are the Philippines hoping to learn from?

Angelito:  One is agriculture. There is no doubt in the minds of Filipino officialdom that Taiwan is one of the most advanced when it comes to agricultural technology and innovations in the field of agriculture. I think that is beyond any doubt. We would like to be able to benefit from that principally because we are also an agricultural country.

Two, the level of poverty in the Philippines is quite linked to the level of poverty in the countryside, in the rural areas where the farmers exist.

We are, at the moment ‑‑ and I’ve already discussed with some of your officials and I’ve also been discussing with a private sector in Taiwan ‑‑ recent means on how we can promote agricultural investment, joint venture agreements and the use of beneficial Taiwan agricultural technology in our farms.

The other one is health, of course. Again, I have to salute Taiwan for having a very, very good public health system.

Eric:  It is pretty nice.

Angelito:  While of course, this is a matter of resources and the Philippines does not have as much resources in comparison. I would like to be able to get the best practices in Taiwan and see how we can adopt them in the Philippines.

In fact, even Philippine health officials have expressed interest in being able to talk to their counterparts in Taiwan so that we can help each other in the field of health.

Then, of course, there is three, trade and investments. That, of course, goes without saying. We would like to invite Taiwanese capital to come to the Philippines.

We have several investment opportunities open, the potential is there and while I’m not free to talk about pending projects that are in the pipeline because our Taiwanese friends may not want this bared in public until they are actually there, the potential is very good.

I am very encouraged by the interest shown by Taiwanese business in supporting the new Southbound Policy of President Tsai. In terms of looking at the Philippines, which is, after all, your nearest labor in the south.

Eric:  Turning now to more people‑to‑people exchanges, Taiwan, of course, does have a large population of Philippine workers, many of whom have actually married into Taiwanese families. How has this constant interaction between Philippine and Taiwan people affected bilateral relations and how can it be built on to further strengthen ties between the two countries?

Angelito:  First of all, I’d like to thank the Taiwanese government for the very hospitable and very friendly atmosphere in which they look at our Filipino overseas workers in Taiwan. For instance, just recently the minimum wage has been increased by five percent and that of course is very welcome news for our OFWs.

There is the SHPT Program, which is very important and we would like to pursue further so that the direct hiring of Filipino migrant workers can be expedited at a little cost to them.

Then, of course, also the very recently, your parliament approved the lifting of the three‑year restriction on Filipino migrant workers, so that if their employers want them to continue, they need not go back to the Philippines and wait for the contract to be renewed.

These are all very, very good indications that the relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines, in so far as migrant labor is concerned, is quite solitary.

Of course, there are a lot of things that we can still explore including, for instance, looking at possibilities, especially on culture, of strengthening that and making it institutional.

For instance, I would want to promote cultural exchanges. I think this is one very important aspect that I would like to promote. For Taiwanese students to come to the Philippines and Filipino students to come to Taiwan, for instance, to learn Mandarin on the part of Filipino students and on the part of Taiwanese to learn English as a secondary language.

I think there are a lot of things where we can cooperate, our two countries can cooperate.

Eric:  Finally, Taiwan and the Philippines recently announced three new cooperation projects on natural disaster prevention and personnel exchanges. What can you tell us about those and what does this mean for future bilateral cooperation?

Angelito:  We do have commonalities there. First, that we are both in the typhoon belt and second, we’re also both in the earthquake belt, the Pacific Ring of Fire, so there are a lot of things that each of us can learn from each other.

First of all, I’d like to take again this opportunity to thank the Taiwanese people, the Tzu Chi Foundation, for instance, for the very generous assistance that they gave us during Typhoon Haiyan. This just shows that the bonds of friendship between our countries are very strong.

Of course, we realize that Taiwan has become a very progressive country, very industrialized, and we hope to learn from that. Similarly, I think it is very important that we institutionalize these bilateral relations through greater friendship and cultural exchanges. That, I have explained even to your Minister of Culture.

Eric:  We’ve been speaking with Representative Banayo from MECO Taipei. Representative Banayo, thank you so much for taking the time to share your thoughts with us today.

Angelito:  Thank you very much too for this opportunity.

Eric: That’s it for this installment of Looking South here in ICRT. I’m Eric Gau and we’ll see you all again next week for another look at the new Southbound Policy.