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Taipei (AFP) Feb 8, 2011 Taiwan on Tuesday raised the screening period for Filipino workers and threatened to bar them from entry as a spat with Manila over the deportation of Taiwanese nationals to China deepened. The diplomatic row erupted in December after Philippine authorities arrested 14 Taiwanese in an alleged fraud bust and deported them to China, despite protests from Taipei which wanted them returned to the island to face justice. The new rules, effective immediately, raise to four months the maximum screening period for Filipino workers wanting to move to Taiwan. Screening for migrant workers currently takes up to 12 days. Calling for "goodwill response" from Manila, Wang Ju-hsuan, the head of the island's Council of Labour Affairs, said Taiwan may "adopt even stricter retaliatory measures that may include a freeze of worker imports from the Philippines." She urged local employers to turn to countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia as sources of overseas workers. Earlier in the day, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Timothy Yang called on the Philippines to boost cooperation on tackling cross-border crime in a bid to avoid a recurrence of the row. "It's time for the two sides to sit down and talk," he said. "A mechanism should be set up to jointly bust international crime. That way, we could also avoid a repeat of the recent row." Taiwan's foreign ministry said Monday the island's diplomatic representative in Manila would be recalled this week. In a statement, it added: "The screening of applications for work here by various Filipino workers will be tightened" and the existing visa-free treatment for Filipinos travelling to Taiwan will also be called off. Yang said "the retaliatory measures were aimed to safeguard our sovereignty and national dignity". There are about 72,000 Filipino workers in Taiwan, sending hundreds of millions of dollars a year back to the Philippines. "We'd like to maintain our friendly ties with the Philippines, but what it did first has harmed such ties. Therefore we decided to adopt the measures so as to safeguard national dignity and to display our discontent," the ministry said. It said the measures will be reviewed contingent upon the Philippines' "goodwill" in the future. The Philippines, like most countries, formally recognises Beijing rather than Taipei, but maintains trade and tourism ties with Taiwan.
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