By JOSE KATIGBAK

WASHINGTON — Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo has asked the United States to remove the Philippines from a watch list of countries that do not fully comply with minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking.

He also asked Washington to provide the Armed Forces of the Philippines with “good, hard intelligence” to help it fight terrorists more effectively.

In talks with senior U.S. Government officials including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and National Intelligence Director and former U.S. ambassador to the Philippines John Negroponte, Romulo said he explained steps being taken by the Arroyo Administration to defuse the Muslim insurgency problem in the southern Philippines and protect Filipino women from being exploited.

At a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, the visiting foreign secretary said he was optimistic that peace talks in Malaysia between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) would “come to a successful conclusion no later than the end of the year.”
The main obstacle in the talks — the issue of ancestral domain — is close to being resolved, Romulo said, and added he expected an invitation to attend the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers at Sanaa, Yemen in June.

He said Malaysia, Brunei, Bahrain and Libya, members of an international team monitoring a ceasefire in the southern Philippines between the AFP and the MILF, were lobbying for the Philippines to be invited to the OIC meet.
“I understand we will be invited, we have many friends in the OIC,” he said.

Romulo, on his first trip to Washington as foreign secretary, said he had fruitful discussions on international multilateral issues and matters of common interest with senior government officials and congressional leaders.

He said during his 40-minute talks with Rice at the State Department on Tuesday, “we agreed that the Philippines and the United States will continue to cooperate and work together with other countries in addressing the issue of terrorism.”

He said he asked Rice to remove the Philippines from the State Department’s Tier 2 watch list of countries that have a questionable record in eliminating human trafficking, telling her of Manila’s successes in curbing the exploitation of women.

“We deserve to be removed from the Tier 2 list,” he told Rice.

He said Rice listened to his explanations but made no comment on his request.  

According to the State Department, Philippine women, often lured abroad with false promises of legitimate employment, are trafficked for sexual exploitation to Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and North America in a modern version of the slave trade.  

Countries in the Tier 2 watch list are in danger of falling to Tier 3 and could be subject to certain sanctions, notably the withholding of non-humanitarian assistance from the United States.

Asked his impressions of Rice, given that she was one of the most vocal critics of Manila’s pullout of its troops from Iraq last year to save the life of kidnapped Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz, Romulo quoted her as saying “that’s behind us now.”

He said Rice did not touch on the issue of Filipino workers in Iraq whom the U.S. wants to remain in place.

“Our advisory to our 6,000 workers in Iraq to return home stands. As long as there is unsettled peace and order in Iraq it is quite difficult for Filipinos to be going into Iraq,” Romulo said.

He said he was satisfied with the current level of U.S. troops providing training for Filipino soldiers in the southern Philippines and stressed “when it comes to fighting, the fighting is done by Filipino troops, no other troops fight in any part of our country.”

Romulo said the Philippines will file before June 15 a detailed report on reforms it needs to put into place to qualify for assistance from Washington’s multi-billion-dollar Millennium Challenge Account.

As a “threshold candidate” the Philippines can apply for grants to institute reforms to help meet eligibility requirements for MCA assistance in the future.

(Philippine Star Washington Bureau chief)