Taiwan recalls Phl representative

MANILA, Philippines - The Taiwanese government recalled its representative to the Philippines over the “inappropriate” deportation of 14 Taiwanese fraud suspects to China last Feb. 2, an article in the China Post said yesterday.

The decision of the Taiwanese government to recall Donald Lee, their envoy in Manila, came after the Philippine government allegedly ignored their request to send the 14 arrested suspects to Taiwan and instead deported them to the mainland.

The article also said that the Taiwanese government will conduct stricter screening of Filipinos who wish to work in Taiwan in response to the deportation issue.

In a statement, the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO), the representative office in Taiwan in the absence of official bilateral ties, yesterday expressed regret over the Philippine government’s deportation of the Taiwanese fraud case suspects to China.

MECO said it understood the reaction of the Taiwanese government over the Philippine government’s handling of the case.

Authorities arrested the suspects, along with 10 Chinese nationals, in December for allegedly swindling $20 million in an international scam targeting mainland Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese nationals.

The syndicate members who had pending arrest warrants in China due to large-scale fraud were arrested in Makati upon the request of Chinese authorities.

MECO further said that the Philippines and Taiwan have developed strong ties over the years and expressed hope that the incident will not in any way jeopardize this relationship.

It added that law-abiding Taiwanese can still visit the Philippines and will be protected by the government.

Meantime, Taiwan yesterday called on the Philippines to step up cooperation on fighting cross-border crime and avoid a recurrence of the deportation incident.

“It’s time for the two sides to sit down and talk,” Taiwan Foreign Minister Timothy Yang told reporters.

“A mechanism should be set up to jointly bust international crime. That way, we could also avoid a repeat of the recent row.”