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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nTypically, when a foreign power invades another country, they\u2019re met with resistance that could lead to war. But something unusual is happening in the Philippines. Thousands of Chinese workers are invading the country and taking jobs away from Filipinos. However, Malaca\u00f1ang is not worried about it. In fact, they welcome it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently, the Senate Labor, Employment, and Human Resources Committee\nconducted an inquiry on the influx of foreign workers in the Philippines. It was revealed\nthat the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) issued almost 52,000 alien\nemployment permits for Chinese workers. According to DOLE officials, more than\n150,000 Chinese enter the country using tourist visas before getting short-term\npermits to work for online gaming firms. The Senate committee also found out that\nmore than 119,000 tourists \u2501 mostly Chinese \u2501 were able to avoid Philippine labor\nregulations. Current estimates place 200,000 to 400,000 Chinese are working in\nPhilippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs), which were established after\nPresident Rodrigo Duterte took over the government in 2016. Currently, there are\naround 50 POGOs in operation today, mostly operated by Chinese nationals.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But what\u2019s causing the ease for foreigners to acquire work permits is a glaring\nloophole in the system where any of the 3.12 million Chinese \u201ctourists\u201d registered at\nthe Bureau of Immigration (BOI) can convert their tourist visas into working visas as\nlong as they obtain an Alien Employment Permit (AEP). And while waiting for their\nAEP, they are issued a Provisional Work Permit (PWP). So, in a practical sense, any\ntourist admitted to the country can stay and work without too much of a hassle.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As one resident in Metro Manila had observed: \u201cThe Chinese have invaded our islands in the West Philippine Sea and now they\u2019re in my condo! It\u2019s a home invasion!\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, POGOs are just one industry that is employing a large number of Chinese\nnationals. The bigger industry, which is growing fast, is the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d\ninfrastructure project of President Duterte, which is estimated at US$180 billion. What\nwe\u2019re talking about here are construction workers \u2501 tens of thousands \u2501 employed\nby Chinese state-owned contractors.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n All the contracts that the Philippines had agreed to undertake with Chinese bank loan\nfinancing, the following conditions are included: No bidding process, project to be\n<\/em>done by one of China\u2019s state<\/em>-owned companies, the workers to be Chinese nationals,\ncost overruns to be renegotiated (that usually ends in higher interest rates), and others\nincluding asset-based lending practices.\n<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chinese contractors who got the no-bid contracts hire Chinese nationals,\ntransport them to construction sites, provide housing and meals, and pay them\naccording to China\u2019s pay standards, which are much higher than Philippine pay\nstandards. In essence, Duterte\u2019s infrastructure project does not increase the country\u2019s\nconstruction employment opportunities.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were reports that the Chinese workers are paid on the average P3,000 a day\nwhile Filipino construction workers are paid on the average P600 a day. The disparity\nis outrageous.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n One has to remember that the Chinese construction companies will only hire Chinese\nconstruction workers as per contract condition. The pay is already built-in to the cost\nof construction. But here\u2019s the sad part: The Philippine government is paying for the\ncost of construction plus whatever profit, overhead, housing allowances for the\nChinese workers, and other costs are added to the total contract amount. Would it\ncost less to hire Filipino construction workers? Absolutely. But then these are the\nconditions the Chinese government imposed on the countries that were enticed into\ninfrastructure projects with high-interest predatory loans from Chinese banks chosen\nby the Chinese government.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n To entice Chinese workers to work in the Philippines, they have to be paid comparably or more than what they earn in China. After all, it didn\u2019t matter to the Chinese construction companies because the extra cost of labor would be added to the total construction cost, which is paid by the host country, the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But what\u2019s happening to Chinese construction projects in the Philippines is also happening in all the countries where China is building infrastructure projects, including 35 seaports around the world. To date, 16 countries are vulnerable to China’s \u201cdebt- trap diplomacy” and economic coercion, including Vanuatu, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Tonga and Micronesia. Three decades ago when China\u2019s export market increased in volume, China embarked on a massive project; building high rise housing projects in newly created cities in anticipation of the growing middle class. Well, they over-built hundreds of them in what are now called \u201cghost cities.\u201d Some say that they were built on purpose knowing that the growing middle would buy the hundreds of thousands of units built. Economic experts said that by expanding the construction industry, millions of construction jobs were created in the 1990s and 2000. It also caused China\u2019s GDP to grow year after year. But like anything else, good things come to an end sooner or later. When the construction bubble finally burst, China had to find ways to put her construction and infrastructure workers in new projects. And with not enough domestic projects to work on, well…. where else would they go? When Chinese President Xi Jinping came to power, he dreamt of China becoming a\nsuperpower. But he couldn\u2019t dislodge America as the world\u2019s sole superpower. His\n\u201cChina Dream\u201d took shape with his \u201cSoft power diplomacy,\u201d which is to gain economic\npower as a first step to becoming a superpower.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Xi then embarked on a \u201csoft-power diplomacy\u201d to sell China\u2019s infrastructure projects\nto other countries. That\u2019s when his \u201cOne Belt, One Road\u201d (OBOR) Initiative came to\nfruition. He envisioned OBOR as the new Silk Road connecting Asia and the Western\nWorld by land and by sea. To date, China has built 35 seaports around the world\ncreating sea routes \u2501 called \u201cString of Pearls\u201d \u2501 from the East and South China\nSeas to the Indian Ocean to Africa and Western Europe. Recently, China was trying\nto take over the Hanjin Philippines operations at Subic Bay.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last November 2018, Xi visited the Philippines for the first time and sealed 29\ninfrastructure projects with Duterte. It opened doors for Chinese workers to come to\nthe Philippines, since the \u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d projects were designed to be funded by\nChinese banks and utilize Chinese contractors and workers only.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n But things don\u2019t seem to be what they should be. And the biggest problem that\u2019s\nlooming in the horizon is China\u2019s OBOR Initiative itself. After pouring trillions of dollars\ninto these grandiose infrastructure projects, participants are beginning to worry that\nOBOR is China\u2019s thinly disguised strategy to expand her influence over countries from\nAsia to Western Europe. Instead of signing up to make deals with China, many\ncountries are now beginning to stay away from doing business with her. But how\nabout the 16 countries that have already been entrapped in China\u2019s debt-trap\ndiplomacy? Do they have a way out? Or would they suffer the fate of Sri Lanka,\nshackled in debt and her patrimony collateralized?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could China\u2019s miscalculation of her OBOR Initiative cause her construction industry\nto crash and open the floodgates to Chinese \u201cinvasion\u201d of the Philippines and other\ncountries?\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Could China\u2019s miscalculation of her OBOR Initiative cause her construction industry to crash and open the floodgates to Chinese \u201cinvasion\u201d of the Philippines and other countries?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":5591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5520"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5593,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5520\/revisions\/5593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cBuild, Build, Build\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/PerryDiaz_01.jpg\")
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<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ghost Cities <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/PerryDiaz_02.jpg\")
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One Belt, One Road <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.philippinesentinel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/PerryDiaz_03-1.jpg\")