Philippines retains tier 2

The Country Got the Same Rating For 2nd Straight Year
By Leonard D. Postrado
Published: June 21, 2013
Manila, Philippines --- A weak justice system proved to be a dagger in the heart of the Philippine
governments campaign against the so-called modern day slavery as the country retained its Tier 2 antitrafficking rating for the second straight year, the United States (US) State Department reported yesterday.
The 2013 United States Global Trafficking in Persons (USGTIP) Report came out just days after a
scandal over the alleged participation of Embassy officials in the sexual exploitation of overseas Filipino
workers (OFW) broke out.
In its report, the US State Department retained the Philippines Tier 2 status as it stressed that the
inefficient judicial system in the country posed serious challenges to the successful prosecution of human
trafficking cases.
Countries that were under the Tier 2 status in the USGTIP were said to have governments that do not
fully comply with the TVPA minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves
into compliance with those standards.
Law enforcement officials complicity in human trafficking remained a problem in the Philippines, and
corruption at all levels of government enables traffickers to prosper, the report pointed out.
It did not, however, make significant progress in addressing the underlying weaknesses in its judicial
system, which stymied efforts to hold trafficking offenders accountable, and the overall number of
prosecutions remained proportionally low for the size of the problem, the US said.
According to the report, government agencies that were tasked to enforce laws against human trafficking
were reportedly the offices that permit trafficking offenders to conduct illegal activities, allowed
traffickers to escape during raids, extorted bribes, facilitated illegal departures for overseas workers, and
accepted payments or sexual services from establishments known to traffic women and children.
The report cited the cases of a judge who reportedly mishandled trafficking cases, and a city prosecutor,
who allegedly accepted a bribe to downgrade a human trafficking charge to child abuse.
There were ongoing allegations that police officers at times conducted indiscriminate or fake raids on
commercial sex establishments to extort bribes from managers, clients, and female victims in the sex
industry, sometimes threatening the victims with imprisonment, the report said.
It also noted the dwindling number of human trafficking-related convictions in the Philippines from 29
convictions to 24.
Even the recent scandal facing Philippine Embassy officials did not go unnoticed by the US State
Department as it noted the case of the Philippine ambassador abroad who was accused of sexual
exploitation of a domestic worker.
The US report further said that a significant number of Filipina women working in domestic service in
foreign countries also face rape, physical violence, and sexual abuse.