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Border Watch Tackled
Saturday, August 3, 2002
By Max de Leon, Karl Kaufman
For The Manila Times

Reuters

Anti-U.S. demonstrators trying to force their way into the US embassy run into a wall of police shields. At least 10 people suffered slight injuries during the scuffle.
Image Credit: Rolex dela Peña -- MT.

In his speech last month before the Asia Society in New York City, Powell expressed satisfaction over the Philippine-US cooperation against terrorism. “I am proud, so proud, that American forces are hel­ping to train and equip their Philippine Army counterparts to combat groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, a terrorist organization which regularly kidnaps, as you know too well, civilians for ransom,” he said.

MT
US State Secretary Colin Powell is expected to take up the need to tighten border security in the Philippines as part of the campaign against terrorism when he meets with President Macapagal-Arroyo in Malacañang this morning.

Powell was scheduled to arrive in Manila last night.

At that meeting, the President will press for a more humane treatment of Filipino deportees from the US, greater access of Philippine tuna in the US market and the lifting of a negative travel advisory on the Philippines, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said yesterday.

Also expected to be discussed are ways to improve military and civilian intelligence in the global campaign against terrorists, as well as Philippine efforts to block terrorist funds, how the US can help the Philippines tighten security along its maritime borders and crack down on the use of forged documents by terrorists and illegal workers.

Powell is on the eighth and last leg of his Asian tour. In Brunei, he signed an agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) aimed at making the region more responsive to future terrorist threats.

Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo would also take up with Powell the plight of Filipino World War II veterans, Bunye said.
(More: The Manila Times News Source)
2002 © The Manila Times.

Dan