The Philippine government on Saturday said it would contribute 20,000 U.S. dollars to a United Nations trust fund to help contain the rampant piracy on Somali waters.
Filipino sailors are the most frequent victim of Somali pirates as the Southeast Asian country provides one third of the world's sailors. By now, 44 Filipinos remain in the hands of the pirates in the Gulf of Aden.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the U.N. fund will be tapped by Somalia's Transitional Federal Government to beef up its security forces to battle pirates on the sea and hunt down the pirates' principals on the land.
United Nations Security Council in this January adopted Resolution 1863 to establish a trust fund to help maintain security in Somalia until a UN peacekeeping operation can be deployed.
The Philippines has been active in calling for more international cooperation to fight the scourge of piracy in East Africa. The government has also imposed a ban on the deployment of Filipino seafarers in the Gulf of Aden and surrounding areas.
(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2009)
