As part of the intensified campaign against human trafficking, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima directed the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking (IACAT) to thoroughly review pending cases before the council and come out for immediate resolution of those cases.

The ICLAT which is headed by Department of Justice Undersecretary Jose Vicente Salazar, is directed to immediately come out with immediate resolution of those cases.

Undersecretary Salazar, concurrent undersecretary-in-charge for the Bureau of Immigration, said that now that the council’s mandate has been made very clear he would immediately start an intensified and all-out campaign to put to jail those engaged in human smuggling.

De Lima’s order came at the heels of a meeting with President Aquino where the President expressed concern over large-scale human trafficking cases in the country.

The President also said that the battle against trafficking in persons (child and women trafficking, labor trafficking, and organ trafficking) is one of the priority concerns of the administration.

The meeting was also attended by Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Dinky Soliman, Department of Labor and Employment (DoLE) Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz, and (DFA) Department of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo.

He also said the IACAT composition is revved-up with the appointment of seasoned prosecutors.

According to him, the appointment of Assistant City Prosecutor (ACP) Raymond Jonathan Lledo,  president of the Prosecutors’ League of the Philippines, as National Task Force Chairman; ACP Ferdinand Baylon as Chief of Operations of the Task Force; and former Makati police homicide investigator ACP Ramoncito Ocampo, head of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Task Force, makes the team more structurally viable and organized in the effective prosecution and conviction of offenders.