RP must ratify the Asean Charter

The Department of Foreign Affairs invited us yesterday to a breakfast meeting with Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand who is now the secretary-general of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean). He is new in his post at the Asean Secretariat. He assumed the post last Jan. 7 and has a five-year tenure until December 2012.

He was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand from 1997 to 2001. When he left the Foreign Affairs Ministry in mid-2001, he was appointed as member of the Commission on Human Security of the United Nations (UN) and an advisor to the International Commission on Intervention and States Sovereignty. He also served on the ILO’s World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization. He served as Chair of the Asean Ministerial Meeting and the Asean Regional Forum from 1999 to 2000. Thus, he knows where he speaks on all matters related to the Asean.

The anniversary of the Asean founding in Bangkok on Aug. 8, 1967 coincides with the opening of the Beijing Olympics next month, Dr. Surin happily noted. He wished that this important historical footnote would have a special mention on that day at the Olympics when Asean leaders like President Arroyo would be there among the 80 heads of state who accepted Beijing’s invitation.

He recalled the Asean Foreign Ministers found the “defining moments” for Asean oddly in the aftermath of cyclone Nargis that devastated Myanmar in May. The Asean as a regional bloc stood solid in asking the military junta leaders in the erstwhile Burma to allow international aid to reach its suffering people.

The international community found the Asean as their only “window” in the architecture of regional groupings in this part of the world through which they were finally able to enter and provide assistance to the cyclone-stricken Burmese people. Dr. Surin echoed the wish of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah who told him he would want to see the Asean flag ahead of everybody else in coming to aid the 560 million people of Asean member states, especially during times of needs and calamities.

Six months into his office, Dr. Surin is in the thick of the campaign for the ratification of the Asean Charter. The Asean secretary-general’s immediate task is to ensure the full ratification of the Charter before the 14th Asean Leaders’ Summit slated in Bangkok in December this year. By ratifying the Charter, he stressed, the 41-year old regional bloc will gain international recognition and confidence that the Asean is solid and serious about the role it plays in the global community.

He underscored the Asean needs effective integration, especially with the advent of globalization and competition for trade and investments. “So we need to put our house in order and one way to do this is to have this Charter to give it legal personality,” he pointed out. He noted that Asean should not abandon the driver’s seat in leading the scores of existing architectures in the region. 

Dr. Surin came here as guest of the ongoing Asean Science and Technology Week and met President Arroyo when she keynoted it on Monday. She personally assured him that the Philippines, as one of the five founding members of the Asean, fully supports his task. In fact, she created last week a task force to work for the Philippine Senate’s ratification of the Asean Charter and designated the DFA to head it. 

The Charter was signed by each and every head of state of the Asean member countries in November 2007 during the Leaders’ Summit held in Singapore. In order for the Asean Charter to take effect and binding to them, it needs ratification by all the 10 member states in accordance with their respective internal procedures. To date, though, six members  — Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — have already ratified the Charter. The Philippines, along with Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar, have yet to ratify it.

Off-the-cuff, Dr. Surin tells me the ratification of the Asean Charter by the Philippines is “critical” and a “decisive factor” for this leading regional architecture to move forward, or be left behind. He admits he envies the “participatory democracy” we enjoy in the Philippines as compared to the rest of the Asean. “Here, it’s much more open access, much more participatory, and much more give-and-take because you are a different society,” he cited. “I think that’s healthy and we believe the Philippines will come around (to ratify the Asean Charter),” he added. From his impression of these talks he had with some of our lawmakers, Dr. Surin sees no obstacles for the Senate ratification of the Asean Charter.

Taking this into consideration, he touched base with his fellow Liberal Democrats here in the Philippines. He met over dinner with the Liberal Party (LP) stalwarts headed by former Senate president Franklin Drilon, Sen. Mar Roxas II, Quezon Province Rep. Lorenzo “Erin” Tañada, and former Bukidnon Rep. Neric Acosta. Dr. Surin is the first chairman of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats to which our local LP is one of the founding political parties. He is especially fond of Acosta who is the official spokesman of LP. Dr. Surin described  Acosta as “ever mobile” and considers him a “half-Thai” because the LP young Turk is married to a Thai woman.

Aside from being a member of the academe, Dr. Surin is also a veteran politician. From the google search I did on his background, I found out he received his M.A. and Ph.D in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. Upon his return from the United States, he spent almost 10 years teaching at the Faculty of Political Science at Thammasart University, Bangkok, Thailand. In 1986, he ran for a Parliamentary seat in his hometown, Nakorn Sri Thammarat and has returned to the Thai Parliament eight times since 1986.

But the ratification of the Asean Charter should be beyond domestic politics. It is a regional architecture where the Philippines can proudly acknowledge being one of its builders. Therefore, our present crop of leaders should nurture and strengthen its foundation by having the Charter ratified without further delay.