By Joyce Ann L. Rocamora/PNA
MANILA — Majority of the United Nations (UN) member states including the Philippines on Monday night adopted the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) that aims to manage migration and address migrant rights in Marrakech, Morocco.
Speaking during the General Debate of the GCM, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the Compact was adopted “with reason by showing that migrants have been useful additions to host countries.”
“Not fear but facts shaped our perception,” he said.
The Philippines was among the 164 governments that took part in the historic move towards managing the global migration crisis.
While a number of member states shunned the accord, Locsin said the overwhelming support of other countries on the Compact’s adoption “defeats the notion that migration is bad.”
“But while some of the nights are going out in the West as once they did, the bright shining lights of the likes of Germany, France, and Spain continue to push back the darkness enveloping the migrant experience,” he said.
“The Philippines is not discouraged, the GCM enjoys near universal support and those not yet ready to commit recognized the clear need to discuss migration,” he pointed out.
At the opening of the GCM Conference, UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the adoption as the creation of a “roadmap to prevent suffering and chaos.”
UN data shows that more than 60,000 migrants globally have died on the move since 2000.
The adoption of the pact, now known as the Marrakech Compact, coincides with the 70th anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document which is central to the pact.
For his part, Guterres said “it would be ironic if, on the day we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we would consider that migrants are to be excluded from the scope of the Declaration.”
