28 May 2015 - Philippine Permanent Representative to ASEAN, Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso exhorted the Filipino delegates to the 10th Coordinating Conference on the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (10th SOC-COM) to re-assert Philippine leadership in ASEAN by being pro-active in submitting projects and initiatives even as the country is now preparing for its chairmanship of ASEAN in 2017, which is also the 50th (golden) Anniversary of the founding of ASEAN.
The delegation, led by Undersecretary Florita Villar of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), vowed to coordinate with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine Permanent Mission to ASEAN to achieve this goal. The officials attended the annual coordinating conference of the ASEAN Socio Cultural Community (ASCC) pillar at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta on May 20 to 21, which was convened this year primarily to consult and incorporate sectoral perspectives on the draft ASCC Attendant Document for the ASEAN 2025 Vision; exchange views on cross-sectoral and cross-cutting matters pertinent to the ASCC; and to consider ways and means to enhance the operationalization of the SOC-COM Terms of Reference.
During this meeting, Ambassador Buensuceso lauded the ASCC pillar for their high rate of accomplishment in realizing the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community by the end of 2015. She also advised the body to sharpen and define their monitoring of accomplishment tools and requested them to tell success stories on how ASEAN has impacted the lives of the ordinary ASEAN citizens. She hoped that when the ASEAN Community is launched at the 27th ASEAN Summit in November 2015 in Malaysia, all three pillars of the ASEAN Community would be able to provide a definitive benchmark of accomplishments and at the same time chart the future direction of ASEAN.
Philippine officials attending the 10th SOC-COM included: Undersecretary Jude Esguerra of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC); Undersecretary Jess Anthony Yu of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO); Undersecretary Jose Marlowe Pedregosa of the Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB); Assistant Secretary Orlan Calayag of the Department of Agriculture (DA); Executive Director Emmeline Verzosa of the Philippine Commission on Women (PCW); Director Dolores Bonifacio of the Civil Service Commission (CSC); Director Cecilia Javillonar of PCOO; Director Aian Caringal of the DFA; Hannah Giray of DSWD; Atty. Sem Cordial of NAPC; Tina Katherine Sison of CSC and Leah Samson of the Department of Agriculture. END