The Philippine Refugee Processing Center (PRPC) was a large facility near Morong,

Bataan Bataan (), officially the Province of Bataan ( fil, Lalawigan ng Bataan ), is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Balanga while Mariveles is the largest town in the province. Occupying the enti ...

, Philippines, which was used as the final stop for

Indochinese Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

refugees making their way to permanent resettlement in other nations. It was situated south of

Subic Bay Subic Bay is a bay on the west coast of the island of Luzon in the Philippines, about northwest of Manila Bay. An extension of the South China Sea, its shores were formerly the site of a major United States Navy facility, U.S. Naval Base Su ...

and north of the

Bataan Nuclear Power Plant The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant is a nuclear power plant on the Bataan Peninsula, west of Manila, Philippines. Completed but never fueled, it is located on a government reservation at Napot Point in Morong, Bataan. It was the Philippines' onl ...

Operational history

Opened in 1980, the Philippine Refugee Processing Center (PRPC) prepared Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian refugees, including ethnic minorities (such as the

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of v ...

) from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, for immigration to a variety of resettlement nations such as Canada, Norway, Australia, France, and primarily the United States. An estimated 400,000 number of refugees were said to have settled in the area. On February 21, 1981,

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

visited the site and held a field mass which was attended by various refugees of different religion. During his visit, he sought for love and compassion for the Indochinese refugees and called for other nations to assist them in rebuilding their war-torn lives. A Vietnamese refugee crafted a wooden cross and gave it to the pope as tribute. In honor of the pope's visit, the Bataan Technology Park built the Replica of Papal Shrine near the actual grounds of where the mass was once held. It was inaugurated on May 2, 2011, the same day when Pope John Paul II was beatified in Rome. PRPC funding came to an end in the early 1990s as the wave of Indochinese refugees went from a flood to a trickle. The site was permanently closed and fell to looters and squatters, and eventually into disrepair by the early 1990s. By the mid-1990s, the

Government of the Philippines The Government of the Philippines ( fil, Pamahalaan ng Pilipinas) has three interdependent branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. The Philippines is governed as a unitary state under a presidential representative and d ...

decided to reclaim the site from the jungle, and turned it into the

Bataan Technology Park Bataan (), officially the Province of Bataan ( fil, Lalawigan ng Bataan ), is a province in the Central Luzon region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Balanga while Mariveles is the largest town in the province. Occupying the enti ...

, loosely associated with the new complex which had been built on the nearby site of the former

Subic Bay Naval Base Naval Base Subic Bay was a major ship-repair, supply, and rest and recreation facility of the Spanish Navy and subsequently the United States Navy located in Zambales, Philippines. The base was 262 square miles, about the size of Singapore. Th ...

. A museum dedicated to the refugee camp and experience now stands on part of the former site as well.

Organization

PRPC was funded by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and was capable of holding up to 18,000 refugees at any one time. Coupled with a large population of Filipino and employees from other developing countries, PRPC operated like a small city with schools, hospitals, libraries,

restaurant A restaurant is a business that prepares and serves food and drinks to customers. Meals are generally served and eaten on the premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services. Restaurants vary greatly in appearance ...

s, sports facilities, fire brigades, sewage treatment facilities, power generation facilities, water treatment centers, markets, and houses of worship for four religions.

Refugee accommodation

Philippine refugee processing center bus

The main functions of the camp were to hold the refugee population long enough to complete tuberculosis testing, wrap up bureaucratic requirements before departure, and—assuming the refugee was heading to an English speaking nation—give them an opportunity for English as a second language training. Virtually all refugees had confirmation before arrival at PRPC that they had been accepted to resettle in the West and therefore the mood among the refugee population was frequently upbeat and positive. The ESL program was operated by the

International Catholic Migration Commission The International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) is an international organization that serves and protects uprooted people, including migrants, refugees, and internally displaced people, regardless of faith, race, ethnicity or nationalit ...

(ICMC) and was funded by the U.S. Department of State. ICMC provided training to adult refugees aged 17 to 55. Aside from ESL classes, it offered Cultural Orientation (CO) and Work Orientation (WO). A similar ESL program was offered to children by

World Relief World Relief (officially, World Relief Corporation of National Association of Evangelicals) is an Evangelical Christian humanitarian nongovernmental organization, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals and a leading refuge ...

through an extensive primary education program that took place within classrooms throughout the site.

Notes

*The ICMC ESL/CO Program and PRPC was still fully operational in 1993. The program closed in 1995 Atmanda.com
/ref> *

References

External links