Phl, China vow to improve fight vs illegal drugs, human trafficking

BEIJING – The Philippines and China agreed yesterday to improve their joint fight against the illegal drug trade and human trafficking as President Aquino wrapped up his state visit here to proceed to Shanghai and Xiamen for more business meetings and other engagements.

“There was a commitment to cooperate in combating transnational crimes,” Aquino told reporters in an ambush interview.

“There were so many fronts. We presented six topics, they presented about seven and there were subsets. For the most part, maybe between 85 to 90 percent of the matters discussed, there was unanimity of viewpoints. So we were really rather pleased with that and even in the areas that were contentious, there seemed to be some movement towards a positive end,” Aquino said.

In a joint statement released after Aquino’s separate meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao, China Vice Premier Wang Qishan, Premier of the State Council Wen Jiabao and Chinese National People’s Congress standing committee chairman Wu Bangguo, Aquino and Hu agreed to fulfill legal procedures to expedite the implementation of a treaty between the Philippines and China on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and begin negotiations for a bilateral agreement on transfer of sentenced persons.

There should have been an agreement to start talks on the transfer of sentenced persons, but the Department of Foreign Affairs insisted that it would have to be subject to further discussions.

Three Filipinos were executed by China early this year for drug trafficking and there are other Filipinos on death row and in other jails for various offenses.