Transcript of DCM Paul W. Jones Remarks at Inauguration of “Bahay Silungan sa Daungan” Halfway House Manila North Harbor April 10, 2008
As delivered
Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat. Thank you so much for that kind introduction and thank you, General Manager Sevilla, and your wonderful team at the Ports Authority for this honor of speaking with you this afternoon.
I also like to acknowledge Attorney Garaygay and the wonderful team at the Visayan Forum Foundation – all the partners in the task force against trafficking here at the Manila port, that includes the media, the private sector – thank you and good afternoon.
I’m thrilled to be here today. Ambassador Kenney is disappointed she’s not here today – she is still in Cebu and couldn’t be with us but she wanted me to convey how much she recalls the day, nine months ago in July, how fondly she recalls laying the time capsule here together with all of you the inauguration of this shelter-halfway house. And I can tell you that coming here and seeing it at its completion, it is such an impressive site. This is a truly spectacular facility that will serve the needs of so many people, and only with the support of so many people here can do that.
We really want to congratulate and salute the groundbreaking work of the Philippine Ports Authority under the leadership of Attorney Sevilla-- building shelters like this out of their own resources at key ports around the Philippines to protect people that are victims of the scourge of trafficking. I also want to applaud once again the pioneering work of the Visayan Forum Foundation, which we are very proud to support from the United States government, who work on behalf of victims of trafficking throughout the Philippines.
But most importantly, we want to recognize the incredibly progressive and fruitful partnership of these two great organizations, ahead of so many others that come together in a task force to do counsel, to support the efforts of those who want to protect, and to preserve the right of the victims. You have seen, you have saved, and helped hundreds, and even thousands of victims over the years, and I’ve seen for myself some of the other terrific facilities most recently in the port of Davao, and I know you have upcoming projects inaugurating one at the weekend of April 30th in Iloilo. And all of these projects go so far to help people in real need.
As I mentioned earlier, it’s really these partnerships and teamwork that are the only way to make progress against this evil of human trafficking. And the teamwork here in this Manila port is tremendous and it goes beyond to include all the members of the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking at the national and local levels that includes the Department of Justice, that includes obviously Visayan Forum Foundation, and other non-governmental organizations – the port authorities, the airport authorities, the police, the maritime police, the Ombudsman’s office, DSWD, many other non-governmental organizations, prosecutors, and all others who want to help solve this tremendous problem of trafficking around the world.
And I’d like to purvey one special word to the media present to day. And that is, please continue the terrific work you’ve been doing in explaining to the people of the Philippines and the people around the world, the evil of trafficking, what it actually means so aptly described by Attorney Sevilla – what it actually means for real people, people that we may know, people that are relatives, or friends of all of us. But also, please explain the tremendous work being done to prevent this scourge by committed organizations, and explain to people where they can go for assistance when they, or a family, or a friend is in need of help.
Trafficking in persons is a worldwide problem obviously, and it’s a problem that we really have to run very fast to keep up with because it takes advantage of a global phenomenon. It takes advantage of the tremendous growth in legitimate travel across countries. Over the past five years, the number of people crossing international borders in seeking legitimate work has doubled and is expected to double yet again in the next five years. And obviously, here in the Philippines there are a large number of people who travel from work to work and cross international borders legitimately. But it’s not a surprise that certain individuals, certain mafia syndicates and evil people seek to take advantage of that growing number of people crossing international borders, and crossing provinces within countries such as the Philippines. It is estimated that there were 800 thousand people last year who were trafficked illegally, who were taken advantaged of as they crossed international borders. So it’s a huge international problem. But it’s a problem that we can succeed at, and that we can succeed at only when we work in partnership. The support that the United States provides against trafficking is worldwide but it’s also very local. And we look for partners at the local level who can really make tremendous progress against trafficking in ports such as here in Manila, in Davao, around the Philippines, with NGO partners, with prosecutors, with various members of the Inter-agency Council Against Trafficking. And we’re clever- we think of our support against trafficking and we drew it in a sort of a simple construct that’s familiar to perhaps everyone here about the three “P”s.
The first ‘P’ is prevention – creating the awareness of people in a society at large so that their friends and family members and individuals don’t get tricked into trafficking, don’t’ get fooled by being lost or misunderstood and then get sucked into a crime syndicate. And it’s tremendous to know that you have this center that will be a major part of the work – to explain and to raise public awareness as it is the centers across the Philippines.
The second ‘P’ is protection. The keynote here, in a shelter like this, to separate victims from the traffickers, to give them the confidence and the safety and security they need to start and rebuild their lives and go back to their families and loved ones.
And the final ‘P’ is prosecution. Working to make sure that the traffickers themselves are prosecuted and that a clear message is sent to deter other people, other organized crime syndicates who might want to engage in this activity. And in that area, we try to help in training police and prosecutors to build effective cases against traffickers and so tremendous work has been done as successfully recently by the Visayan Forum Foundation here in the Philippines, as well as many other government and individual prosecutors in putting out of business, traffickers.
But the focus of all our efforts has to be on the victims. And that’s why we are so proud of the partnership that we have here because they keep us all focused on the victims. On preventing people from becoming victims, of protecting victims when they are subject to the evils of trafficking, and of prosecuting those who would have more people become victims. It’s a huge problem, it’s a growing problem but we are confident that here in the Philippines it will be a huge success to put this problem out of business and to really serve the people who want to travel freely and legitimately throughout the Philippines and across international borders.
Thank you again so much, and on behalf of Ambassador Kenney and the entire U.S. Embassy, we salute you, we congratulate you, on this great success today.
