‘The Philippines is known for assisting refugees from political oppression throughout history, starting with President Manuel Quezon who welcomed Jews fleeing from the Holocaust, settling them in the Visayas.’
THE Palace issuance, Executive Order 163 signed on Feb. 28, 2022, could not have come at a more providential time. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in at least 875,000 individuals leaving that country and crossing into Poland and other safer eastern European countries, according to the United Nations. The UN has said as many as four million people may try to leave Ukraine because of Russia’s invasion.
EO 163 is a presidential order institutionalizing efforts to protect refugees, stateless persons and asylum seekers to comply with the Philippines’ obligations under international agreements. This issuance noted that the Philippines is a state party to the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, the 1954 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1962 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Another legal peg for EO 163 is the Philippine Immigration Act of 1940 which allows the admission of immigrants without nationality and grants the President the power to admit aliens who are refugees for religious, political, or racial reasons for humanitarian reasons and when not opposed to public interest, the order said.
This development augurs well with preparations to welcome refugees from Ukraine, if they care to settle temporarily here. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has already claimed the lives of 500 Russian soldiers, 300 Ukrainian civilians and hundreds of Ukrainian troops, and it is only the second week of the war yet.
The Philippines is known for assisting refugees from political oppression throughout history, starting with President Manuel Quezon who welcomed Jews fleeing from the Holocaust, settling them in the Visayas.
President Corazon Aquino initiated the assistance to boat people from Vietnam who left their country in the wake of the United States’ defeat in the Vietnam war, boarding frail boats to cross the South China Sea. These Vietnamese refugees were processed by the Aquino administration at a processing center in Bataan, for release to their final destinations, mostly in the US.
President Joseph Estrada, during his time, announced his readiness to accept refugees from East Timor, although it was not clear whether East Timorese refugees actually arrived in Philippine shores. Now, it is President Duterte’s turn to extend the invitation to Ukrainian refugees.
The development of a legal framework that will protect asylum seekers, refugees and stateless persons is also one of the objectives of the updated Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022. With this executive order, the Duterte administration is upholding the Philippines’ historical image of helping other peoples in need, an excellent feature of its “friend to all” foreign policy.
