In cooperation with the CBCP’s Episcopal Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People (ECMI) and the Philippine Migrants Right Watch (PMRW), the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) organized a consultation meeting on migration issues and concerns in Asia at Bahay Pari located in the San Carlos Seminary Complex in Guadalupe, Makati City last August 28 –29, 2008. The high level Conference convened about 40 delegates from 18 countries in the region, composed mainly by bishops and representatives from their respective commission for migrants of their bishops’ conference.

The consultation was led by ICMC’s Secretary General Johan Ketelers from Geneva and its President, John Klink. Bishops and directors of their migrants’ commissions from 18 conferences representing Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam were present. Joining the consultation was the Secretary General of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC) Philippine Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato, who attended the first day of the conference  while his executive secretary,  De La Salle Brother Anthony Rogers, stayed during the course of the entire consultation. PMRW was represented by its Vice President, Fr. Fabio Baggio, who delivered the welcome remarks.

The primary objective of the consultation was for the Asian Bishops’ Conferences and their Commissions on migration to examine migration issues and actions from a regional perspective. The participants explored convergences, common orientations and possible response mechanisms within the region. The Consultation further allowed ICMC to strengthen its membership network in Asia. Among the specific migration topics discussed by participants were national migration issues; labour migration, international marriages and their need for protection; human trafficking; and, the well being of migrants and their families. The discussions on these issues were held in preparation of the Catholic Church for its own active participation to the forthcoming Second Global Forum on Migration and Development which will take place in Manila on October 27 to 30 this year. The Church has been actively involved in various levels in
helping people on the move in various parts of the world.

For two days, the delegates to this consultation were presented various migration themes. They were given the background of the different issues where states, societies, and economies in different regions of the world are getting integrated and interdependent. The impacts of globalization which also created uneven and huge disparities in the standards of living and the level of human security, particularly in Asia, were also discussed. A consequence of this uneven economic been the increase in the scale and scope of cross border migration. Moreover, with their ethnic, cultural, racial, religious, political and economic mixture, the composition and structures of migration vary within Asian countries, often demanding country specific solutions. Asian migration likewise generates high social costs such as family disruption, racial discrimination, problems of reintegration and resettlement and abuses such as trafficking of children and  women for prostitution and forced labor. The movement of women trafficked or otherwise to rich countries of Asia from the poor countries in the region for marriages that are often dubious and leading to domestic violence is common. With such enor-mous issues to discuss in one evening at the conference, the participants were made to group themselves according to the issues that concern their countries most in order to discuss possible partnerships in finding appropriate solutions to the specific problem of migration experienced in their own countries.

At the end of a two-day meeting in Makati City, most of the delegates to the Consultation agreed to set up an Asian network that would tackle the issues and concerns of migrants and their families. They acknowledged the need to set up for an Asiawide network for a more effective Church response to issues surrounding migrants and refugees. Except for the delegates from Myanmar and Vietnam, everyone agreed that people sent by their local bishops to the meeting would constitute ICMCAsia. “ICMC will deal with them directly as representatives of their bishops’ conferences and other Church juridical bodies in the region”, explained Bishop Precioso Cantillas of Maasin, chair of the Philippine bishops’ commission on migration, which hosted the meeting. He was supported by Johan Ketelers and ICMC President John Klink.

Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines,
said that the exchanges during the consultation highlighted  the various concerns and experiences of Asian migrants from different perspectives.

“On the whole, migration is a challenge, a permanent challenge to the “Catholicity” of Christ’s Church in our Asian continent. The fact of migration deepens the identity of the Catholic Church as a “communion in diversity” on intercultural, inter-faith and interreligious communion, the special place of migrant peoples for the encounter with the “other” in the spirit of hospitality and dialogue,” said Archbishop Lagdameo in his closing remarks.

Archbishop Lagdameo also proposed to the participants that the church in Asia, because of the communal aspects of some problems of migrants, should consider organizing common approaches in solving their common problems. He also said that linkages between the ICMC and the Asian churches should be continued, supported and developed.

A reception for the delegates to the Consultation was also held on the last day of the Pari. It was attended by the some diplomats from a few Asian countries, as well as reporters from the media. Among those who came to the reception was the Apostolic Nuncio to the Philippines, H. E. Edward Joseph Adams, who arrived the earliest.