Remarks
of
Foreign Affairs Secretary
Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.
on the Occasion of the United Nations Day 2021
25 October 2021, 5:30 – 6:30 PM
Theme: “No One is Left Behind in a Post-Pandemic Philippines”
I congratulate the United Nations for its 76th anniversary.
Last year, we marked the diamond anniversary of the UN in a somber mood. We were faced with the greatest challenge the Organization has faced since its founding: a pandemic ravaging all countries and disrupting all of our lives. Though we are still not out of the woods, we now have the knowledge and tools to fight it: vaccines, medicines, and informed policies.
But inequalities remain; indeed, there are starker contrasts in this pandemic between those with more but want less and those with less but cannot get more; not to speak of those with nothing just waiting for the luck of the draw. Of the billions of tickets in the pandemic lottery representing these poor souls, the few tickets pulled out are the few who survive but likely disabled by the disease.
Here is an upside: the handwringers can wring their hands even more and feel good about themselves; while also achieving a world less populated, and therefore less polluted by the destitute. A fresh start you might say. From wringing hands, it takes but a pause to weave and wave them in Shiva’s dance of death. It is an easy, even a pretty, transition with a clean conscience. We didn’t kill them; the virus did. We couldn’t save them all because…well… because. “Western civilization, is a good idea,” Gandhi said, “if only the West would try it.”
Closer to home, the pandemic has taken a terrible toll on the children and youth of all countries — advanced or developing, big, middling or the small; never mind the children of the flat out destitute for now. Not many go to school. And the long walk from hovel to makeshift classroom leaves them little strength to play.
Unable to go to classrooms where they are physically challenged by teachers to learn, and to playgrounds where their bodies can play. Deprived of the company of classmates; they are damaged by deprivation and loneliness. We don’t know what they will grow up to be: whether their capacity for happiness and fulfillment is diminished. For the children of the destitute, it is the same old world with less to eat, no chance to scavenge, and even more chances of dying faster in greater numbers.
Be that as it may, these are the “succeeding generations” to whom the UN’s founding is dedicated yet now living in a fearful present to face an uncertain future.
In 2015, we gave the world the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as vision and roadmap. Five years hence, we are nowhere near to reaching our targets. Most are still being left behind. Perhaps it is partly due to our failure to recognize the youth as the strongest agents of change. They have the energy and the hope.
At the last UN High Level Week, hundreds of leaders came to the podium. But it was global superstars BTS whose message was heard loudest across the world, outside the UN. They shared stories and aspirations of the youth today and talked about the SDGs; an inspired way to revitalize them. I wondered then, is it too late for BTS to save the SDGs from turning into platitudes?
But I am emboldened by hope. For BTS spoke of their generation's resilience, hope, and dedication to building a better world; of a generation that fears not change but welcomes it as challenge and opportunity for better things and more of them.
It is only right that this year’s commemoration of UN Day – for it is NOT a celebration – focuses on young people. They are the present like we are, but they are the future as the song goes. And we are not. It is platitudinous but it is better than sitting on hands in despond and despair.
I thank UN Resident Coordinator and my good friend Gustavo Gonzalez. Under his leadership the UN Country Team has become our most reliable partner in sustainable development, in fighting climate change and upholding human rights. He embodies the “inclusive multilateralism” declared by President Duterte as the only multilateralism that “can deliver the global public goods we need.”[1] We would not have achieved — the just departed Chito Gascon, Menard Guevarra, Gustavo Gonzalez and myself — the milestone initiative of the Philippines-United Nations Joint Program on collaboration in human rights between the UN and a government.
We did not stop there. We revitalized our Cooperation Framework to better align with our COVID-19 priorities. We increased Joint Programmes — from 1 in 2019 to 7 in 2020, partnering with the Joint SDG,Peacebuilding, and Migration Multi-Purpose Trust funds, and the COVAX Facility. We strengthened food security. In a show-case example of localizing a current global agenda, the Philippines and the UN facilitated a ‘People’s Summit’ on food systems.
The COVAX facility has provided over 24.3 million vaccine doses. Without it, our COVID vaccination program would still be languishing.
The Philippines was present at the UN founding; we weren’t even independent then; but we were a nation for sure; forged in the most savage war of peace at the dawn of the 20th century; and for a brief shining moment the first republic in Asia — one and indivisible, with liberty indubitably, and justice for all, which is a work in progress everywhere without exception. The most advanced states are preempting dissent by targeting children and breaking the knees of new countries just learning to walk. We hereby reaffirm our commitment to the UN’s goals. Thank you.
[1] Speech at the UN General Assembly High Level Week, 2021.