Just heard this news at work yesterday. Now, that it’s even easier for our relatives and friends to come here (including more budget airlines and nice planes for the route by flag carriers), where are we gonna take them?
Plus, there are more Taiwanese restaurants opening up in Manila (I don’t know why, but that’s certainly a good sign) - with 2 DTFs there, where else will you take them in Taipei?
My brother and his family were here a couple months ago for a few days and we were at the night market practically every night.
What I have often wondered is why Max’s Chicken hasn’t opened up here? They specifically fry their chicken in (pork) lard - which would make it an instant hit here.
And then a month later, it’ll be time for them to go out of business. Sorry, but if there’s one thing the Philippines isn’t famous for, it’s food.
The visa-free thing is nice though. Does the PH government still make citizens fill in loads of forms, pay bribes, and run a gauntlet of ‘approvals’ before they’re allowed out of the funhouse?
The visa process has been streamlined on the Taiwanese end (E-Visa has been active since October 2016), but otherwise, if you go through TECO (or MECO) you still have to do a certain amount of hoop clearance over on the Pinoy side. Every document has to be certified by the DFA, so birth certificate and marriage certificate (if applicable). Of course, all docs have to be NSO-issued within last six months. PH passports are only good for five years, so you gotta watch out for that, too. Gotta do all the hooping again with the documents to renew. Of course, @finley, NOTHING involving the bureaucratic circle jerk is easy over there.
At any rate, the quick answer is: with E-Visa, it’s not as much a pain in the ass to get out of there as it used to be.
The family came over this January (with wife on E-Visa) and it was remarkably smooth despite my constant anxiety.
Meanwhile, per one of many conversations with @Rocket, the Jollibee would never fly here because the Taiwanese won’t dig the taste (if it stays true to the real J-Bee). The One Day Millionaires of Overseas Pinoys in Taipei are NOT going to keep the doors open. They’ll flood the joint on Sundays and it will die a slow death during the week.
There is, however, a noticeable increase of Taiwanese presence in Metro Manila. Aside from the Cha Tea locations and new restos, there are a bunch of Family Marts popping up, which are (if I’m not mistaken) Taiwanese-owned franchises. At the same time, Cebu Pacific finally got us off the 737-300s and into the new 777s, which are obviously much larger - and the TPE-MNL flights are still full.
As long as nobody shoots up a fishing boat in contested waters, I see a warming trend in TW-PH relations. But what I do I know?
This is interesting, as the Family Marts here in Taiwan are apparently operated directly (unlike * cough * their Uni-Presidented rival) the parent company in Japan.
Maybe it’s just me but i don’t think tourists from the Philippines these days aren’t coming to hit a bat in the Combat Zone. They know about DTF, 101, Cha for Tea andI know 3 families that came over last week for the Coldplay concert.
You know, I can’t say with any authority who owns those Family Mart joints. I’m just going off what I hear from my better half.
There’s something Machiavellian about this new visa policy. I tend to follow a local friend’s lead when it comes to the state of migrant work. Whoever he’s hiring is currently favored and most likely illegal. For a long time, Pinoys were his top choice. Then he switched over to Vietnamese. Something happened and they proved untrustworthy. Then Malays and Indonesians dominated. Apparently, he’s soured on them. Now he’s clearing out the Indonesians and entertaining a return to Pinoy labor. There won’t be any shortage of applicants.
That’s what I was thinking. As super_lucky implies, there will surely be a whole flood of Pinoys who instantly disappear … onto the low-paid illegal labour market. And that may or may not be exactly what the authorities (on both ends of the deal) intend.
The no-smoking thing in the Philippines makes me facepalm. It’s still perfectly legal to set fire to huge mountains of trash and leaves and car tyres, or to drive around in vehicles powered by long-defunct Chinese engines. In fact in the latter case, it’s virtually illegal to do anything else: imports of electric motors, electric vehicles, efficient gasoline engines and the like are subject to huge, erm, tariffs at Customs.
Not as far as I know, lot of people smoke in public. I think there is some kind of law that says you are not allowed to smoke within 10 meters or so from a public building, but in any case it is not enforced like Duterte wants to have it enforced, with vigilantes and all.
Yeah … I must say, it’s nice that Filipinos can come here and see what a normal, functioning society looks like. I suppose that’s mainly why their government is loath to let them out in the first place. They might start getting funny ideas - you know, like expecting policemen not to run kidnapping and extortion rackets.
