Filipinos Caught Working Illegally as Teachers - Past Instances

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Does anyone know if any Filipinos have been caught working illegally, with any employers in Taiwan? I am especially looking for information about Cram Schools in Taipei.

By “illegal”, I mean without a work permit and/or without proper residency status (i.e. no visa, no ARC) and/or any other legal issues.

If so, please link, Mandarin or English, court cases, newspaper articles, or other information that shows the circumstances (i.e. city, type of employer, type of violation, special circumstances), and what was done about it (i.e. fine, deportation).

I am looking for specific instances. It’s not a question about the laws themselves.

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I have never heard of any Filipinos working as teachers, legally or illegally. Few Filipinos can speak English at the standard required, or have recognized teaching qualifications, and would be discriminated against even if they met the requirements (North Americans are still the preferred choice).

Just curious why you’re asking?

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7 posts were split to a new topic: Is it hateful to inquire about illegal Filipinos?

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@Liam_Og, I don’t think they are attacking Filipinos, but just describing their situation in Taiwan.

I think not so many Filipinos are illegally employed at cram schools, because it is obvious that white anglo-saxon are preferred, and there are many Filipinos who can teach legally. There is almost no benefit to cram schools to hire Filipinos illegally.

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I work with a Filipino English teacher and her sister is also an English teacher. A Filipino teaches English at a kindy near where I live. I think there are quite a lot of Filipino English teachers.

I’ve never heard of one getting deported.

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there are about 70 Filipino teachers on ARC. I don’t know the proportion of English teachers, though.

@theargs, I also want to know why you are asking.

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Then you haven’t been assiduously reading Forumosa! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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A post was split to a new topic: tango42

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A person caught working illegally can appeal to the Executive Yuan, in which case the appeal decision is (normally) available online.

A rejection by the EY can still be appealed through the administrative courts. This thread provides an introduction:

I’ve just had a look at the Taipei and Shilin District Court records of administrative cases and found two matches for 菲律賓 that have 就業服務法 as the subject, but neither one involves a buxiban (cram school).

Searching the EY’s 訴願決定查詢 for the same subject and keyword gets a haystack of hits. There’s no guarantee you’ll find a needle in there. :idunno:

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My school has a number of Filipino teachers working legally and teaching courses in math & science. These teachers have legitimate work permits based on their qualifications and credentials.

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I used to work with one. They held a Philippine passport. The school hid their “identity” as it were. They were married to a TW’ese, so that was their work permit.

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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. At the time, I was in Taiwan on my American passport (I didn’t have a Philippine passport at that time). I worked for the Banqiao cluster of branches at Hess (Carrie’s branches). That first summer we had A LOT of classes and a shortage of teachers and one of us was a Filipina who had taught for a longtime and had the trust/respect of everyone I knew. From what I recall, care was taken to not disrupt her workload, despite that law.

Other Filipinas I knew who taught here worked at Dominican International School. I am not aware of anyone who taught illegally

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I have a Philippine friend who teaches English who could possibly b more articulate than me.

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How could that b!?!?

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Days wat I’m sayin’

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Thank you for clarifying, sir (or mom).

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Not sir, not mom, just man.

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Thank you for the replies.

@yyy -

Did they involve a teacher, or are they in any way related to the education field? Does the 就業服務法 relate to both white collar and factory workers?

Blockquote “I’ve just had a look at the Taipei and Shilin District Court records of administrative cases and found two matches for 菲律賓 that have 就業服務法 as the subject, but neither one involves a buxiban (cram school).”

@GooseEgg - Can you link this law?

Blockquote "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. "

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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. :slight_smile:

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I liked Carrie, we would always talk when she did her branch visits. Everyone else was so scared of her :joy:

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