De Lima slams US envoy for ‘offensive’ quote

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima

“Certainly offensive and demeaning.”

This was how Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Wednesday described the claim of US Ambassador Harry Thomas that two out of five male foreign tourists visit the Philippines for commercial sex.

De Lima said she sent a letter to Thomas on Monday asking him to clarify the statement he made in a judicial conference on human smuggling two weeks ago that 40 percent of male foreign tourists come to country for its flesh trade.

“I think almost all countries have (citizens) engaged in (the sex) trade. But to say that our problem is that big, I really don’t know,” the secretary told reporters in an interview.

“It is certainly offensive and demeaning that we’re portrayed as a country of sex workers,” the tough-talking Cabinet official said.

Appearing before the Senate on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said Thomas was standing by his statement, which the US official claimed came from the Department of Justice (DOJ).

But contrary to the American diplomat’s claim, De Lima said the DOJ did not provide the US Embassy any figures relating to the country’s problem with sex tourism.

She said the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (Iacat), an attached agency of the DOJ, “does not gather or collate statistics on sex tourists.”

“We were surprised by that announcement (of Thomas). I don’t recall anything or any report or statistics the DOJ or Iacat prepared which he could have used as basis,” De Lima said.

“We really do not gather that kind of statistics, not even for purposes of (investigating) human trafficking,” she added.

In fact, she said, Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar, who also heads the Iacat, had maintained that local law enforcement units and related government agencies “do not have accurate statistics on sexual tourism and related cases.”

“At this point, I can say that that information did not come from us, unless somebody somewhere in the department has managed to come up with the statistics,”

De Lima said.

In her letter to Thomas, a copy of which was obtained by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, De Lima thanked the US ambassador for his country’s continued support for the Philippine government’s campaign against human trafficking.