RESOLVING transnational crime, tourism, labor and sports cooperation became the focus of the agreements inked between the Philippines and Cambodia during President Rodrigo Duterte’s state visit to the Southeast Asian country on Wednesday.
Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay and Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Teo signed four agreements with their Cambodian counterparts—seen to strengthen bilateral ties.
These are:
(1) MOA on Cooperation in Combatting Transnational Crime;
(2) MOA concerning the cooperation in the field of labor;
(3) MOA between the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Cambodia and Philippine Sports Commission on Sports Cooperation; and (4) Implementation Program of Tourism Cooperation 2016-2020.
The agreements on cross-border crimes seeks to enhance Philippine and Cambodian police partnership in combating “terrorism, extremism, financial and economic crimes, and drug trafficking,” Philippine ambassador to Cambodia Christopher Montero said in a media interview.
“If it will be signed during the president’s visit here in Cambodia, it will be the first agreement on transnational crime under the new administration. It highlights and supports, lends an international dimension to the President’s campaign against the drug menace,” he said before the President’s arrival.
The Philippines and Cambodia are also eyeing closer cooperation on the further protection of their migrant workers, which will also involve assisting Cambodia on vocational training of its workers.
“They think, they feel the Philippines has achieved a high level of best practices in the areas of vocational training. As you know here in Cambodia, they have what they call ‘human resources gap’ or ‘education gap,’” he added.
Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo, meanwhile, said she expected a significant increase in the visitor arrivals from Cambodia, noting this year’s January to August visitor arrivals from Cambodia registered a meager 2,381.
The Implementing Program of Tourism Cooperation of 2016-2020 was one of the four contracts signed during President Duterte’s Cambodian visit.
Also present in the signing at the Peace Palace in Phnom Pehn were Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea and Secretaries Perfecto Yasay, Jr., of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Silvestre Bello III of the Department of Labor and Employment, Delfin Lorenzana, of the Department of National Defense, Ramon Lopez, of the Department of Trade and Industry, and Bong Go, of the Presidential Management Staff.
The Philippines provided a steady number of arrivals for the country.
In 2015, the Philippines accounted for 84,677 visitor arrivals in Cambodia, and for the first half of this year, 70, 680.
“Now is the best time to involve our Cambodian friends in our Tourism programs and initiatives. We would be happy to help them further as they promised to do the same for us,” Teo said in a statement.
According to the Tourism Cooperation pact signed, air accessibility and route development will be given priority.
Meanwhile in Singapore, the Philippine government is hoping to open talks about possible labor deals when Duterte arrives on Thursday.
Philippine Ambassador to Singapore Antonio Morales said there was no existing bilateral labor agreement between the two countries despite 180,000 Filipinos working and living in the island nation.
“Perhaps a possibility of this thing will be explored and by and large I think it will be a general discussion of the situation of workers,” the official said.
Although there are “no pressing labor and immigration issues” concerning Filipino workers in Singapore, Morales said there were still cases of abuse among household service workers.’
Another concern among Filipinos included the economic slowdown in Singapore, which may result in the cutting down of manpower.
“This is a concern of our countrymen especially those working in the oil and gas industry but fortunately with the upswing of oil prices this will be minimized,” he said.
Given these concerns, Morales said a bilateral labor agreement could only be good for Filipino workers in the city state.
“We believe that a bilateral labor agreement will institutionalize our cooperation in promoting the welfare of our countrymen,” he said.