Binay sees PHL getting US Tier 1 rating in drive against human trafficking

Butch Fernandez

VICE President Jejomar Binay has expressed confidence that the country could soon achieve a Tier 1 rating in the global campaign against human trafficking through more efficient investigation and prosecution of both labor and sex trafficking offenders, including government officials involved.

“The country’s modest achievements allow us to believe that we could achieve Tier 1 status at the soonest possible time. To that end, we are committed to upgrade our efficiencies in investigating and prosecuting both labor and sex trafficking offenders, including government officials involved,” said Binay during his speech at the Fifth Social Watch Global Assembly on Tuesday night at the Sulo Riviera Hotel in Quezon City.

Issues on migration are among the topics being featured in the various workshops of the Social Watch Global Assembly as its international delegates work to come up with a Strategy Plan covering advocacy and capacity building programs for 2012-14, guided by this year’s theme “Claiming Democracy: Accountability For Social And Economic Justice.”

Aside from migration, the workshops will also tackle Social Justice, Antipoverty and Redistribution Strategies, Gender and Social Movements, Budget Issues and Budget Advocacy, and Future for the Millennium Development Goals after 2015, among others.

Binay, head of the Task Force Overseas Filipino Workers and Presidential Adviser on OFW Concerns, said the government would go beyond protective and responsive measures, and create an environment that would make it impossible for traffickers to ply their trade.

The Philippines was recently upgraded from Tier 2 watch list to Tier 2 rating by the US State Department, whose report lauded an “intensified effort” by the Philippines, citing the country convicted 25 trafficking offenders, compared with nine the previous year, including first-ever convictions for forced labor.

“Our gains in the migrant worker front have been adequately reported. But our small victories against human trafficking probably require repeating. We gave that task the highest priority, and less than one year later, the US State Department upgraded the status of the Philippines in its 2011 global trafficking in persons report,” said Binay.

He said the global tip report recognized the country’s determined efforts to prosecute and convict trafficking offenders, as well as the increase in training and public awareness efforts on trafficking, for judicial officials, diplomats, civil-society groups and overseas Filipino workers.

According to him, the Filipino diaspora has created a huge Filipino community that now spans virtually the entire globe. What must be done, he said, is to make sure that Filipinos leaving for jobs abroad are equipped with adequate technical skills and the ability to cope with and adapt to the new culture they will encounter in their adopted country. Government must also continue, in collaboration with other labor-exporting countries, to work for an international agreement that would allow family members to join workers wherever they go, he said.

Meanwhile, former National Treasurer Leonor Briones, the lead convener of Social Watch Philippines, said the main concern of Social Watch with networks globally is democracy and social and economic justice—hence, the theme “Claiming Democracy: Accounting for Economic and Social Justice.”

“We advocate the rights-based approach to human development, campaign for gender equity and stay in the forefront of the campaign for the environment and climate change preparedness.”

Meanwhile, Binay also pushed for an Association of Southeast Asia-wide drive to combat human trafficking and believes the Philippines can contribute in formulating a region-wide solution to this problem.

“The Philippine experience of a unified multisectoral approach is something we can share with our Southeast Asian friends, as all of our nations have committed to form stronger regional solutions to this evil that plagues us,” Binay said in a speech during the Experts’ Meeting to Study the Feasibility of Developing an Asean Convention on Trafficking in Persons.

The feasibility study is a response to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Leaders Joint Statement In Enhancing Cooperation Against Trafficking of Persons in Southeast Asia that was signed in Jakarta in May.

According to the statement, Asean leaders vowed to strengthen regional and international cooperation to prevent and combat trafficking in persons.

The statement also said the leaders of the Asean promised to further enhance the work of the existing network of  law-enforcement agencies including the Heads of Specialist Units in order to effectively address the issue of trafficking in persons.

“We are proud of what we have managed to accomplish, and we are well aware that there is much to be done. The continued unified vigor of all concerned agencies and stakeholders shall go far in helping us fortify our policies and systems,” Binay said.

“On this firm foundation, we can build stronger working relations with our Asean neighbors as we address this common foe. The challenge is upon us. Just as we have worked hard to rise to the occasion, I pray that this gathering shall help an Asean Convention in Trafficking in Persons convene at the soonest possible time,” he added.

(Butch Fernandez)