SA TAIWAN

After five years of living in Taiwan, I was still holding my Philippine passport. I did not really consider switching nationalities despite the restrictive status of being a foreigner. I have many friends who worked on securing their ROC ID card as soon as they landed in Taiwan. There are admittedly many advantages to being local. In my eyes, the primary advantage is employment. Being a local allows one more employment choices. A foreigner, on the other hand, needs special permission for working. And the work visa is employer specific. So why did I not opt for citizenship when I had the choice? The decision is easy if I was female. A male Taiwan citizen, on the other hand, would be drafted for military service. And, depending on the age, this could be as long as 2 years. Of course, there are other considerations like how long I planned on being here and whether I will go back to Manila or move someplace else.

The decision to switch nationalities was made so much clearer and easier after I got married to a local. I just had to do it for my wife and, eventually, my children (now I have two). It was the responsible thing to do as I need the security and benefits of local citizenship. In Taiwan, being married to a local gave one no guarantee for residency and no right for employment. Even being a permanent resident, as opposed to an alien resident, does not give one rights equal to a local citizen of Taiwan. A friend of mine kept his Philippine passport and got permanent residency. He found out later that he could not buy an apartment because he did not have Taiwan citizenship. He got so depressed that he got himself a car instead. And now he is working on getting his citizenship. There are also a lot of horror stories of families that are separated because one parent was a foreigner – you could leave the country and find out later that you can’t come back.

In making my decision, I had to ask myself the following questions:

1. Am I married to a local?
2. Do we plan on having kids?
3. Are we staying in the country or are we going to go somewhere else?
4. Do I want to have the same rights as a local?
5. Would it be possible to gain local citizenship?

The military draft was also a consideration but it was a minor one as I only needed to serve two weeks. I was much older than the regular draftees so I was only required to get trained for Taiwan’s citizen army. I also figured that I might as well bite the bullet and get my citizenship while the rules are still in my favor. This is a peculiarity here in Taiwan. The rules for the draft and citizenship seem to change every year. There is now another option for draftees. The military training could be replaced by some sort of civil service. In other words, you would not need to go to camp to learn how to march, fire guns, etc. In lieu of military training, a draftee, depending on his skills, could be asked to serve in a depressed area or a government office. The key thing is, you don’t have much control over what you are asked to do. And you might need to do your mandatory two year service in some remote place in Taiwan.

ROC, what’s in a name?

ROC stands for Republic of China, the official name of Taiwan. Note that the ROC is different from the PRC, the People’s Republic of China. Most people, including the immigration officials who check passports at point of entry, would not know this. I’ve taken several trips to Europe where I crossed the border from Germany to Switzerland, and vice-versa. In the past, it was necessary for me to have both a Schengen visa and a Swiss visa to travel to these two countries. And in recent years, a Schengen visa is enough even for travel to Switzerland. This convenience is afforded a Taiwan passport holder. Unfortunately, on older passports such as mine, the word Taiwan is absent on any part of the passport. This has caused some nervous moments while I wait for entry to Switzerland. They eventually let me through after realizing that my green passport is a Taiwan passport and that I’m not mainland Chinese.
PINOYexpats