{"id":49863,"date":"2015-05-21T11:24:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T03:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=49863"},"modified":"2015-05-21T11:24:01","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T03:24:01","slug":"phl-will-comply-with-un-convention-on-refugees-stateless-persons-coloma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/05\/21\/phl-will-comply-with-un-convention-on-refugees-stateless-persons-coloma\/","title":{"rendered":"PHL will comply with UN convention on refugees, stateless persons \u2013 Coloma"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Rohingya<\/a>
Rohingya Muslim refugees in Arakan, Bangladesh (Kisa Kuyruk \/ Shutterstock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA \u2013 Contrary to newspaper reports that the Philippines will push boat people back to the sea, Malacanang on Tuesday said the country will comply with the United Nation Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Stateless Persons.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe will do what is needed and deal with concrete situations as these actually materialize, based on our position to comply with the UN convention relating to the status of refugees and stateless persons,\u201d Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in a text message to Malacanang media.<\/p>\n

In a morning television show \u2018Umagadang Kay Ganda\u2019 of ABS-CBN, Coloma explained he did not say the Philippines will push the Rohingya boat people back to sea if they will be found undocumented.<\/p>\n

\u201dI did not say that,\u201d Coloma said.<\/p>\n

Coloma clarified that he was quoting the statement of Bureau of Immigration (BI) commissioner Fred Mison who said the Asian boat people will be examined if they will qualify as refugees or asylum seekers.<\/p>\n

\u201dIf they are not really refugee or stateless persons, that\u2019s would be the basis that they cannot be accepted. If they will be identified as refugees, we have procedures for that based on our commitment to the UN convention,\u201d Coloma explained.<\/p>\n

\u201dOur declaration is clear. First, we will determine if they are real refugee,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In the past, Coloma said the Philippines has set up Refugee Processing Center for the thousands of boat people from Vietnam in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe have shown that we\u2019re loving and caring people because we are Christian country. We care people who are in danger and hungry. It\u2019s our responsibility to help them based on our commitment to the UN. Historically, that\u2019s our practice,\u201d Coloma said.<\/p>\n

Reports said smugglers have abandoned at sea an estimated 6,000 Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims, many of them hungry and thirsty, from Myanmar.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of them have reached land but many of them were floating in Southeast Asian seas in boats after Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia reportedly pushed them back to sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA \u2013 Contrary to newspaper reports that the Philippines will push boat people back to the sea, Malacanang on Tuesday …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":50002,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news-ph","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}