The Employment Service Act (就業服務法) is what makes it illegal to work in Taiwan while foreign (whether “white” or “blue”), unless you have a work permit or an exemption. Foreign spouses of Taiwanese are exempt (as long as they have ARC’s). So are permanent residents.
You’ll need to check the cases individually to see the details. You can also search for the keyword 補習班 (buxiban) instead of 菲律宾 (Feilübin) and then check them to see if any involve Filipinos, but as Tando said, it seems unlikely.
Can you link this law?
All laws and regulations of the central government can be found at law.moj.gov.tw. Not all of them are available in English.
"The law limiting the countries of origin to the 7 “English speaking” countries (not including the Philippines) occurred in my first year (1993) or so in Taiwan when I was a cram school English teacher. "
The law as it now stands (ESA Art. 46 Par. 1 Subpar. 4) limits work permits for foreign English teachers to the countries the Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers officially English-speaking, which is more than 7 and does include the Philippines.
To be precise, it’s a subsidiary regulation of the ESA that requires this, and though it doesn’t explicitly say MOFA has the final say, that is the interpretation the Workforce Development Agency (the unit of the Ministry of Labor that issues work permits) has adopted.
Afaik the “7 countries” rule is merely an internal regulation adopted by some companies and was never an actual law.
When you have a work permit exemption you aren’t subject to the citizenship-of-an-English-speaking-country requirement, though for Filipinos it doesn’t make a difference.
Having an ARC makes your life convenient and allows (and requires) you to join the National Health Insurance scheme, but working is legal as soon as you have a work permit. As far as working legally is concerned, the ARC (or APRC for PR’s) is only required if you want to use a work permit exemption instead of getting a permit.
You can search our site for previous discussions of these issues.