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By APD writer Melo M. Acuña
After over a month when the Office of the President issued a memorandum calling on government departments and offices to suspend negotiations and signing of loan agreements and grants with the 18 countries that voted in favor of a resolution introduced by Iceland for the Philippines to act on reported Human Rights violations in its drug campaign, the Department of Finance (DoF) said exploratory talks are going on with some of the country’s development partners to augment support for projects affected by the ban.
Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III, according to the statement released today, directed Undersecretary Mark Dennis Joven, head of International Finance Group of the DoF, to review affected projects and look for ways how they could be financed by other bilateral partners that did not support the resolution adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), which was reported to have asked for a comprehensive written report on the country’s human rights situation in relation to its anti-drug campaign.
However, Secretary Dominguez did not identify the potential donor-countries as the DoF talks with them are still on its preliminary stage.
“We are currently in exploratory talks with our bilateral partners on how they can assist the Philippine government in funding the grants that were previously under negotiation but were suspended on orders of the President, pending the review by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) on our country’s relations with countries that had voted for or sponsored the UNHRC resolution,” Dominguez said.
Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Fiji, Iceland, Italy, Mexico, Peru, Slovakia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and Uruguay voted in the affirmative to adopt the resolution of the 47-member UNHRC while 14 others voted in the negative and 14 others abstained.
It will be recalled France, Germany and Sweden were part of the UNHRC non-members that supported the resolution.
The Memorandum simply called for the suspension of negotiations for and signing of all loan and grant agreements with the countries that supported the resolution.
Secretary Dominguez clarified the suspension does not mean a permanent cancellation of talks but simply deferment pending the assessment of the Philippines relations with these countries.
The ongoing grants on record with the affected countries amount to US$197.03 million, including the US$172.3 million with Australia, US$4.8 million with Italy, US$1.11 million from Spain, US$9.74 million from France and US$8.98 from Germany.
“All these will not be affected,” Dominguez said.
The projects in the pipeline that will be affected are with France, which covers the Metro Manila Bus Rapid Transit, and those with Germany which amounts to US$36 million to fund studies on climate change.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
