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https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/pragmatic-moves-taipei-manila-strengthen-people-to-people-ties-amid-china-tensions>
"TAIPEI – Filipino economist Jennifer Umlas is thrilled to soon be going on a
holiday to Taiwan, home of her teenage TV obsession – Taiwanese idol drama
Meteor Garden (2001).
The 37-year-old will be heading to the island for the first time in December,
and she plans to visit various locations that were featured in the show, such
as New Taipei City’s Tamsui district.
“I’ve been curious about visiting Taiwan for some time, and now that I see so
many travel videos of it all over social media, I feel even more motivated to
go,” she told
The Straits Times in a video call. “Taiwan’s becoming a popular
travel destination for Filipinos.”
In 2024, Filipinos became the No. 1 source of South-east Asian tourists to
Taiwan for the first time, overtaking those from Malaysia and Singapore. Some
476,700 Filipino travellers arrived on the island that year, more than triple
the 136,998 tourists recorded 10 years earlier.
Besides aggressive tourism campaigns starring Filipino influencers, Taiwan’s
yearly extension of a visa-free entry programme for Philippine passport holders
– first launched in 2017 – contributed to the surge in numbers.
In July 2025, Manila reciprocated for visitors from Taiwan, allowing Taiwanese
tourists to enter the country for 14 days visa-free.
Tourism is just one of several indicators of the expanding unofficial ties
between the two economies, as exchanges in other areas such as trade and
education have also grown. This is on top of the presence of close to 200,000
Filipinos working on the island, and the 600 Taiwanese companies operating in
the Philippines.
“As Taiwan and the Philippines deepen their unofficial ties through trade,
finance, and people-to-people exchanges, both are increasingly bound by shared
interests in economic cooperation and regional stability,” said Dr Jing
Bo-jiun, a Taiwan studies expert at the University of Oxford.
Behind the scenes, Manila has also been quietly working to enhance its
defensive cooperation with Taiwan, even as the Philippines officially adheres
to the “one China” policy, which does not recognise Taiwan as a sovereign
state."
Via Aladár Mézga and Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
