DESK REVIEW ON POPULATIONS AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS travel, marry, adopt, and otherwise interact and live their lives in this increasingly globalized and interconnected world. Children of Philippine descent in migratory settings may be at particular risk where the local context makes birth registration and documentation particularly difficult or inaccessible. The Philippines’ act of acceding to and implementing the 1961 Statelessness Convention will strengthen the protection the Philippines makes available to its constituents, including those at risk of statelessness in migratory settings. There are also persons at risk of statelessness in the Philippines. The Philippine Government, with support from UNHCR Philippines, conducted a series of inter-agency roundtable discussions from 2010 to 2011 and determined the following populations to be at risk of statelessness: • Sama Bajau: A sea-faring indigenous group of approximately 130,066 people in the Philippines (according to the 2010 Census) who are at risk due to their itinerant lifestyle, frequent border-crossings, and generations of non-registration of birth. • Persons of Indonesian Descent (PID): A Joint Commission on Bilateral Cooperation between the Philippines and Indonesia was entered into in 2014, which specifically provides that the Philippines will assist Indonesia in determining the legal status of Indonesian descendants in the Southern Philippines. It established an Action Plan, conducted mapping, registration, and determination of nationality for 8,745 registered PID. Of this number, 8,371 (96%) were confirmed as either Filipino, Indonesian, or granted limited dual citizenship (as of December 2019). • Unregistered children within the context of forcible displacement due to armed conflict:7 While the national average for birth registration in the Philippines is relatively high (above 90%), there are disparities with some areas having a much lower rate of registration. Data from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) indicates that the registration rate is only 37.85% in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim 7 6 It was suggested by various stakeholders that forcible displacement due to armed conflict was not the only reason for unregistered children, and so this population should not be limited in this way. At the same time, not all unregistered children may be at risk of statelessness since those that are not within the context of displacement or conflict have available mechanisms to register their births. Addressing birth and civil registration remains a priority in all its dimensions (whether in the context of forcible displacement due to armed conflict or beyond), and has been included among the recommendations below. The Department of Justice (DOJ) further notes that in the 2010-2011 inter-agency roundtable discussions, this population was not qualified specifically in the context of armed conflict. According to the DOJ, unregistered children run the risk of becoming stateless. Philippine citizenship is determined by blood (jus sanguinis), as can be proven by a birth certificate, which offers prima facie proof of filiation, or a passport, which proves that the country which issued it recognizes the person named therein as its national. (See Macquiling v. COMELEC, G.R. No. 195649, 2 July 2013). UNHCR / April 2021