RP hopeful ASEAN charter will be passed in 2006

The Philippines is hopeful that a charter will have been drawn up for approval by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by the time the country hosts the ASEAN summit and East Asia Summit (EAS) in Cebu next year, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said yesterday.

Romulo said government leaders had frank and cordial discussions on the need for an ASEAN charter at the ASEAN ministerial meeting and summit meetings in Kuala Lumpur last week.

He said the adoption of an ASEAN charter will bring the 38-year-old organization one step closer to integration.

"We hope by the time we host the ASEAN summit and EAS that we have in place the ASEAN charter," Romulo said.

He added that the Philippines’ effort and initiative to draft and adopt an ASEAN Charter — which would give the regional grouping a legal personality — finally paid off as member countries have expressed support for the Declaration on the Establishment of the ASEAN Charter.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), meanwhile, justified the appointment of former President Fidel Ramos as one of the 10 members of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG), whose task is to recommend the broad guidelines in drafting the charter and assess the future directions of ASEAN for 2020 and beyond.

The charter declaration is seen as a milestone in ASEAN because it commits ASEAN leaders to establishing a new legal institutional framework that will help realize the goals and objectives of an ASEAN Community. The ASEAN charter will confer a legal personality to ASEAN and streamline its existing bodies and mechanisms.

DFA Assistant Secretary for ASEAN Affairs Susan Castrence said that for the past 38 years, ASEAN has been a loose organization without a charter that will bind all member countries.

She explained that the Philippines, through then foreign affairs secretary Raul Manglapus, was the first to push the initiative to have an ASEAN Charter back in 1990, even though members were not enthusiastic then about being bound by one.

"In 1990, the ASEAN Charter came from the Philippines when Secretary Manglapus broached the idea of an economic treaty. They were not enthusiastic about it. As ASEAN matures, the need is very much felt to have a personality of its own like other international organizations," Castrence said.

ASEAN approved last Dec. 12 the drafting of a constitution aimed at boosting democracy, human rights and good governance in the region and speeding up democratic reforms in Myanmar.

Leaders of the 10-member ASEAN gathered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for a summit and signed a document pledging to draft an ASEAN charter to serve as its "legal and institutional framework."

The agreement would promote "democracy, human rights and obligations, transparency and good governance and (strengthen) democratic institutions," according to the joint declaration.

Romulo said the ASEAN charter was crucial to the future of the region "as we move towards greater and wider community-building beyond ASEAN, and as issues become more complex and interrelations more complicated."

"It is time to open the door to creating the binding norms that will define and govern our collective actions," he said in a statement.

Romulo said such a charter would provide ASEAN with "legal personality, create a mechanism for settling differences, and a legal basis to enforce our agreements."  

Many hope that an emphasis on democracy and human rights in the document will bring about change in Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.

The current junta, which came to power in 1988, has promised to move toward democracy but has been widely criticized for doing little to fulfill its pledge. It also has defied the international community by keeping pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest since May 2003.

The junta’s behavior has frustrated its colleagues in ASEAN, which itself is facing criticism from the United States and Europe for not pushing the generals hard enough.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said last week that ASEAN’s reputation has suffered because it is perceived as not doing enough to pressure Myanmar to democratize.

"I think they are working hard on that score. We hope that Myanmar will be able to achieve this in order for us to assist them," Syed Hamid added.

ASEAN is long overdue in adopting rules defining principles of human rights, good governance and the rule of law, said Zaid Ibrahim, chairman of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Democracy in Myanmar.

The charter could help hold Myanmar’s junta accountable to basic rights standards, he said. If Myanmar agrees to the document’s principal points in its role as ASEAN member, then "the regime must also show proof that they subscribe to them," he said.