Philippine Statement
delivered by
FOREIGN AFFAIRS SECRETARY TEODORO L. LOCSIN, JR.
during the
54th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
02 August 2021
Agenda Item 5: Follow-up to the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting
Agenda Item 6: Exchange of Views on Regional and International Issues
Excellencies,
Along with the pandemic the situation in Myanmar is closest to home and it is not unrelated. Myanmar is in the throes of a surge and there’s little if any help in sight. We support the swift implementation of the Five-Point Consensus agreed on by our Leaders in April.
Nearly five months have passed since the ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting. Observers will certainly look to today’s meeting for progress in the implementation of the Consensus. The appointment of the Special Envoy shows tangible progress.
The situation is complex, its implications are wide-ranging. The Special Envoy must be given necessary assistance, including clear unwavering policy guidance. We need to hear all parties if we want real and meaningful engagement. And we mean all. Constructive dialogue is what the Five-Point Consensus calls for; it can only happen when everyone concerned is at the table. Foremost, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the body, soul and face of her people.
The AHA Center must also start its work soon. We the Foreign Ministers, can provide guidance, if needed, for the Center to commence the work it knows how to do
anyway under its able leader.
We cannot turn a blind eye to violence nor the plight of the detained. With indifference, we cannot claim to be a people-centered community. We must convince our brother Myanmar that much being done there is really counter-productive.
Nobel Laureate Eli Wiesel warned against its peril[1], viewing the bodies of the Holocaust. “Indifference can be tempting — more than that, seductive… Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.”
Even worse is pretending that this need not be an ASEAN concern. The cherished ASEAN principle of non-interference is not a principle of indifference. It is a principle of respect, mutual respect. It does not mean apathy. It means that when sincere help is offered, it should be taken seriously and not just waved away.
Excellencies, ASEAN Centrality is for the benefit of ASEAN’s peoples. The Five-Point Consensus is proof of how ASEAN responds to challenges from within which will throw into external doubt the seriousness of our regional organization. Its swift implementation — following a prescribed timeline — will show ASEAN Centrality at work.
Brunei Darussalam’s leadership in the second year of the pandemic has been admirable and crucial. We thank Brunei for its initiatives in steering ASEAN on the route to recovery from COVID-19.
Brunei’s theme of “We Care, We Prepare, We Prosper” captures ASEAN’s aspiration to be an organization responsible for the peoples of ASEAN and in charge of the region’s destiny. We thank our brother, Dato Erywan Pehin Yusof for keeping a principled grip on the Myanmar issue even as it slides into a pandemic surge in the midst of conflict.
We renew our call for no one to be left behind. Let us continue to protect the most vulnerable from COVID and the unscrupulous of all stripes who prey on them. So too must we stay vigilant against trafficking in persons, especially of those who have lost their
natural protectors in this pandemic, and out of fear and the desire to flee have put themselves in the hands of slavers of the worst kind. We look to China, our biggest near neighbor, and to its enlightened leadership and enormous capability to further extend the help it has given the region. In Washington, my ambassador argued strongly that the same help in vaccines earmarked for most of us be extended to Myanmar as well because suffering has no borders, no death is exempt from grief.
Selection of a host country for the proposed ASEAN Centre on Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases is a crying need to make a meaningful response to this pandemic and the others sure to come. That is how we care and share. The AHA has been criticized for its inadequate resources.
The Philippines supports efforts to hasten regional economic recovery, including establishing an ASEAN Travel Corridor. But the region’s recovery first and foremost is about its peoples.
The COVID-19 ASEAN Response Fund is key. Why we paid in haste. In line with my President’s call for equitable access to safe and effective vaccines, we welcome the news that the Fund will be used for vaccine procurement. The secret of this pandemic is out — it is not well-wishes but mass inoculation that is needed. We peoples of Southeast Asia are not like others: we have sense; we want to be vaccinated. We cannot recover on our backs, in the grave or going up in smoke from funeral pyres. That is how we prosper.
As the outgoing Country Coordinator, the Philippines takes pride in whatever progress has been achieved in the negotiations on the Code of Conduct.
We convened around 20 meetings; agreed on the value of restarting textual negotiations through virtual meetings; and are pleased that the Preamble is now provisionally agreed on. Soon we turn over the work to Myanmar. On the sidelines, we restored the balance of power in the region by reinstating an improved Visiting Forces
Agreement with the United States.
July 12 marked the 5th anniversary of the 2016 Arbitral Award on the South China Sea. It is the Philippines’ contribution to strengthening of the legal order over the seas. It must be seen for what it is: a benefit to all the world across the board. It is not directed at any other country, near or far. It favors all similarly situated by clarifying definitively a legal situation beyond the reach of arms to frustrate. It is the North Star that will guide us in the present to the future that we want — a peaceful and prosperous South China Sea. Thank you.
[1] Elie Wiesel, “The Perils of Indifference” (1999), at https:www.americanrhetoric.comspeechesewieselperilsofindifference.html.