Workshop on Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration set

August 23, 2017

The Department of Foreign Affairs and other government agencies is conducting a  workshop on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the “Philippine position” regarding the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).

“This interagency workshop on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) is intended to discuss Philippine perspectives and priorities for the GCM and set of recommendations and guiding framework for the negotiations of the GCM”, DFA said in a statement.

Officials from Department of Labor and Employment, Bureau of Immigration, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Commission on Audit, Department of Health, Department of Justice and other agencies connected in the issue of migration will attend the workshop that is led by the DFA, said Robespierre Bolivar, acting DFA spokesperson in an ambush interview on Wednesday.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants on September 19, 2016.

“The global compact would set out a range of principles commitments and understandings among member states regarding international migration in all its dimension”, DFA said.

Bolivar said different agencies will have a negotiating session every week that will start by January next year to come up with the Philippine position on the GCM.

“We’re now crafting Philippine position so that when they start negotiations in January, I think it’s a series. We’re starting in the government sector and then there will be workshops for the civil society for the private sector…to come up with the Philippine position which everybody can stand”, he said.

The preparatory process consists of three phases, from April to November 2017, the agencies will conduct “thematic session and consultation.

Starting November to January 2018 they will conduct the “stocktaking phase and on February to July 2018 there will be negotiations between the different governments which will be held in UN New York.

“It’s schedule to start on January… there are on-going international workshops and what they called stock taking exercises they hope to have a text by the time…of the UNGA next year September”, Bolivar said. Alanna Ambi/DMS