26 September 2014 - Philippine Ambassador to South Korea Raul S. Hernandez chaired the 6th Meeting of the ASEAN Committee in Seoul (ACS) in 2014, effectively kicking off the Philippines’ turn at heading the 10-member coordinating body on September 15 at the Embassy Chancery in Seoul.
The two-hour ACS Meeting, the first under the Philippines’ leadership of the six-month rotating chairmanship, was attended by eight ambassadors and two deputy chiefs of mission from the embassies of the 10 ASEAN member states in South Korea. It was the first meeting attended by the new Myanmar Ambassador U Soe Lwin.
Ambassador Hernandez acknowledged the excellent attendance of his counterparts, saying it “reflects the importance all the ASEAN ambassadors attach to the ACS as a collective body in pushing our common interests here in Korea.”
He also thanked them in advance for their advice, assistance and complete cooperation during the Philippines’ chairmanship, which coincides with a crucial period of ASEAN-Korea relations: the 25th Anniversary of ASEAN-Korea Dialogue Partnership Relations and the 5th anniversary of the establishment of the ASEAN-Korea Centre.
The Meeting mainly focused on the proposed schedule of the ACS for the second term in 2014, which mixed social events to promote solidarity among the ASEAN embassy officers and personnel, such as golf and badminton tournaments as well as an outdoor walk, with meetings with ministers and other senior officials of the Korean government.
The gathering also agreed to establish a troika mechanism in order to facilitate the rotation of the ACS leadership, similar to what is being practiced under the ASEAN Chairmanship, with the preceding, current and succeeding heads working together to ensure continuity.
Under such a system, the current troika is then composed of the Philippines as current chair, Malaysia as predecessor and Myanmar as successor.
In June 2014, Ambassador Hernandez, upon the invitation of Malaysian Ambassador Dato’ Rohana Binti Ramli, accepted the invitation to assume chairmanship of the second term of the ACS pending assumption of the ambassador of the Union of Myanmar.
Upon the completion of the Philippines’ turn at the end of December 2014, the six-month rotation of the ACS will then revert to its usual alphabetical rotating chairmanship with Myanmar taking its turn in January 2015 to be followed by Singapore in July 2015 and so on. END