The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees welcomed the Philippine government’s expression of willingness to accept refugees and forcibly displaced people, including Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.
In his address to the 75th Session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 22, President Rodrigo Duterte said the Philippines is open, “as they have always been, to everyone fleeing for safety, such as the Rohingyas.”
The statement echoed the president’s previous pronouncements regarding the Philippines’ commitment to protect the Rohingya, a stateless Muslim minority from Myanmar.
Since August 2017, over 700,000 Rohingya, mostly women and children, have sought safety in Bangladesh after fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
In recent months, over 2,000 have set out to sea in search of asylum in other states.
The UNHCR continues to call for support and humanitarian action from states and lauds the Philippines’ “consistent willingness” to accept the Rohingya and other forcibly displaced people.
The Philippines is a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has endorsed the Global Compact on Refugees.
At the Global Refugee Forum in December 2019, the Philippines also pledged to develop complementary pathways for admission of the most vulnerable refugees—including the Rohingya—that would allow them to stay in the country until a sustainable and lasting solution to their displacement can be found.
In a statement, the UNHCR said it “has worked and will continue to engage with key agencies such as the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Justice and the Department of Social Welfare and Development.
“The Philippine government continues to be a model for refugee protection and a leader in the region in its support for refugees, asylum-seekers and stateless persons,” read the UNHCR statement.
