PH Chairs ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting
23 May 2017 – Assistant Secretary Ma. Hellen Barber-De La Vega, the Acting Philippine Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) Leader for ASEAN, chaired the ASEAN Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) on 22 May 2017 in Manila. It was attended by the Senior Officials of the rest of the ASEAN Member States (AMS), namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam, and the ASEAN Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC).
The Meeting discussed pending issues and initiatives related to advancing and enhancing the ASEAN Community-building process and ASEAN Centrality, as well as updates and prospects for strengthening ASEAN’s relations with its external partners. The Meeting also discussed several commemorative activities on the occasion of the Golden Anniversary of ASEAN this year.
Assistant Secretary Barber-De La Vega also briefed the Meeting about the preparations for the 50th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM), the Post-Ministerial Conferences (PMC) with the ten (10) Dialogue Partners of ASEAN, the 18th ASEAN Plus Three (APT) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, the 7th East Asia Summit (EAS) Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, and the 24th ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Ministerial Meeting, which will be hosted by the Philippines on 2-8 August 2017. END