US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to make a brief visit to the Philippines next month on her way to a summit of Southeast Asian leaders in Indonesia, the foreign department said Wednesday.
Clinton will call on President Benigno Aquino during the November 15 trip to Manila, Filipino Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario told reporters.
"It (the Clinton-Aquino meeting) will be in terms of bilateral and multilateral issues. We are looking for a discussion on many areas of cooperation," del Rosario said.
The official said he expected human trafficking to be on the agenda but would not give further details.
The United States in June removed the Philippines from a human trafficking watchlist and put it on so-called Tier 2, for countries that do not fully meet standards on human trafficking but are making efforts to do so.
The State Department annual report on trafficking cited an "intensified effort" by the Philippines, which it said had convicted 25 trafficking offenders over the year, compared with nine in the previous 12 months.
Some of the recent cases include the country's first-ever convictions for forced labour, it added.
About a million people leave the Philippines every year in search of work, with about nine million currently living abroad, according to official estimates.
