Philippines

On behalf of my delegation, Sir, I take pleasure in extending to you our heartfelt felicitations on your election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-first session. We in the Philippines and in the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) derive special gratification from congratulating you, a citizen of an ASEAN country, on this great honour. The Philippines pays tribute to Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who has led our Organization in the most difficult circumstances. I must beg your indulgence, Mr. President, and that of our colleagues to speak briefly about recent events in my country, developments which we consider historic, opening a bright new chapter in the history of the Philippines. Exactly a month ago, on 2 September, the Philippine Government and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which had waged a rebellion for more than a quarter of a century, signed an agreement ending the conflict in Mindanao and establishing a zone of peace and development in that island-region. On 9 September, Professor Nur Misuari, leader of the MNLF, ran for and was elected to the office of Governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, which is, by virtue of a plebiscite, composed of four provinces in which Muslim Filipinos are in the majority. At the same time, in accordance with the 2 September agreement, the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development is being organized under the leadership of the MNLF to help promote peace and development in 14 provinces and nine cities in the southern Philippines. Thus has the Philippines opted for national reconciliation as the only true road to peace and development. Here, I pay tribute and give thanks to the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and to the OIC’s Committee of Six on the Situation of the Muslims in the Southern Philippines, under the wise and vigorous leadership of Indonesia and with the especially active involvement of Libya, for guiding us along that road towards the goal which we have now achieved. I mention this because I know that what is essentially a domestic development in the Philippines finds resonance in other places and in the world at large. We all know only too well that conflicts arising from ethnic and cultural differences are not unique to the Philippines. But just as the Mindanao conflict was not unique, neither was the process of reconciliation that ended it. We consider the settlement in Mindanao a reflection of the salutary trend towards peace and reconciliation in the world, as well as a modest contribution to it. In South Africa, the racist abomination that was apartheid has been abolished, and a multiracial Government based on the rule of the majority and the rights of the minority has been put in place, lending new stability to southern Africa. In the Middle East, nations in contention agreed to take the road of peace. Regrettably, recent events have shown that the road is still strewn with obstacles. We retain the faith that these obstacles are surmountable with good will and a firm conviction that peace must not be destroyed again in a land so revered by people of many faiths. Our most fervent prayers go to the leaders and nations involved that they may soon return to the path of mutual understanding, reconciliation, justice and peace, for both the Palestinian and the Israeli peoples. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we can at least hope that the Dayton accords, as well as the 14 September and subsequent elections, will put behind us the singular horror of “ethnic cleansing” and lead to a situation where different ethnic groups can live once again in peace and tolerance. In this hemisphere, the Government of Guatemala and armed dissidents have achieved an accord of security and justice. In our own region of South-East Asia, we look forward to the completion of a new Constitution by Myanmar that will provide a place in the nation’s political life for the nationalities that have for so long been in rebellion and for political groups of many persuasions. Unfortunately, inter-ethnic conflicts in far too many places continue to inflict suffering on innocent people — notably, for example, in Rwanda and Burundi. Around the world, simmering beneath the surface, are grievances arising from growing disparities in economic well-being and social status within States and nations. However, on a global scale, there is a clear trend towards reconciliation and tolerance. As it is within nations, so is it between nations. We may be witnessing a new era, one not only of relative peace but also of close cooperation in dealing with the global challenges of today. The cold war has ended, and with it the deadly reality of armed confrontation between nuclear-armed blocs. Even the old North-South economic divide is being subsumed in a new global trading regime and in regional economic arrangements, such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, in which the interests of both developed and developing countries are taken into account. These developments in reconciliation and cooperation give us hope that mankind can find the will to work together in meeting the old and new challenges that confront the world as a whole. I see six major challenges that are central to the future welfare and the very survival of mankind. The first has to do with the surfeit of weapons that continues to plague the world, particularly the continued deployment and development of nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction, the expanding volume of the traffic in conventional arms and the continued production and persistent use of especially injurious devices of war. The second lies in the potential for conflict over maritime jurisdictions and resources and the need for stable maritime regimes. Another is mankind’s continuing assault on the environment, putting into question the sustainability of the world’s development. Yet another challenge is the need to maintain the momentum of the liberalization of international trade while cushioning weaker nations and vulnerable sectors of society from its undesirable effects. The fifth challenge is the necessity of ensuring human welfare and dignity within the nation- State and within society. The sixth and last is the growing menace of organized criminal gangs purveying terror, deadly weapons, illicit drugs, indentured labour, and the bodies of our women and children across international borders. We have made significant progress in the control of arms; but the world remains a dangerous place, and much work remains to be done. We have extended indefinitely the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Many of us have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty that the General Assembly adopted last month. But we should not stop there, for these are but steps on the road towards complete nuclear disarmament. We continue to call upon the nuclear- weapon States to take seriously their commitment under 2 Article VI of the NPT to negotiate in good faith the abolition of nuclear weapons. Towards this end, the Philippines once more joins the call for the parties to the NPT to draw up an international convention prohibiting the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. As another step, we reiterate the call for the conclusion of an international convention against the production and stockpiling of fissile materials. Sir, last December in Bangkok, your Prime Minister and my President, together with the Heads of Government of the eight other countries of South-East Asia, signed the South east Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty. We urge the nuclear-weapon States to commit themselves to respect this Treaty’s provisions by adhering to its protocol. Together with the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelolco), the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty (Treaty of Rarotonga), the Pelindaba Text of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, and that for Antarctica, the South-East Asian Treaty is a major step towards a southern hemisphere free of nuclear weapons. We support the political linkage among these nuclear-free zones, as was recently proposed. Of particular concern to us is the unacceptably large number of innocent persons, including a disproportionate number of young children, killed or maimed by landmines. The Philippines has ratified the Convention and its Protocol restricting the use of excessively injurious weapons, landmines, booby traps and similar devices. We have joined the move towards a global ban on anti-personnel mines. In this spirit, President Ramos while on a visit last December to Cambodia, a country ravaged by landmines, ordered the immediate destruction of the Claymore mines which were then still in the inventory of the armed forces of the Philippines. Compliance with the President’s instructions has been completed. Another potential threat to global and regional peace and security has been the developing scramble for jurisdiction, resources and strategic position in the world’s oceans. This has been strongly evident in the situation in the South China Sea, which for the most part is surrounded by South-East Asian States. Fortunately, the international community has had the collective wisdom to agree on a set of rules, primarily in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to govern the use of the sea. Not least, the Convention subjects maritime jurisdictions to the rule of law, defining the nature and limits of those jurisdictions and providing the legal framework for their establishment and for negotiating settlements where they overlap. The world is threatened not only by weapons of war and by disputes over territory, but also by mankind’s assault on the world’s fragile environment. The Philippines is firmly committed to the protection of the environment within its national jurisdiction. Environmental protection is a vital consideration in the approval of major development projects. We shall conserve the ecological integrity of the Philippines exclusive economic zone as well as of its internal waters. As an archipelagic country whose exclusive economic zone extends to a portion of the South China Sea, the Philippines places particular importance on preserving the ecological integrity of that body of water, and would welcome the sharing of knowledge and experience gained from efforts to protect the environment in similar bodies of water elsewhere in the world. A potential threat to the environment arises from the growing use of nuclear energy in the generation of electricity. This growth has been particularly rapid in East Asia, producing nuclear waste with corresponding rapidity. While nuclear power is relatively clean as a source of energy, accidents in the operation of nuclear plants and in the disposal of nuclear waste can cause devastation for the environment as well as for human lives. Equally damaging is the reckless manner in which decommissioned nuclear power plants and nuclear- powered vessels are discarded. It is time for the international community to address this burgeoning problem with the seriousness and urgency that it deserves. Last May, President Ramos proposed the possible organization of ASIATOM, an international body to look into this concern in East Asia and to devise measures to deal with it. Along with the breakup of empires, the dissolution of hostile alliances, and the spread of the spirit of reconciliation within and between nations, one salutary global development in recent years has been the establishment of an international trading regime based on the increasingly free exchange of goods and services. This development was made possible by the embrace by nearly all the world of market forces as the most efficient way of creating wealth for the world’s people. The efficacy of this principle of international economic relations has been demonstrated in South-East 3 Asia, where countries have opened up their markets to one another, through the Free Trade Area of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, and to the world for the benefit of all. Next month the Philippines will have the honour of hosting the annual meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (APEC), including an informal meeting of leaders of the 18 participating economies on the Pacific rim. At that meeting, we will consolidate plans of individual APEC economies into a coherent Manila action plan for APEC that will free up and ease trade, and that will attain the target set for free trade by the year 2010 for the developed participants and by 2020 for the developing economies. The plan includes ways of engaging in economic and technical cooperation, particularly in order to help the less developed economies to adjust to the free- trade regime envisioned in APEC. A few weeks after the APEC meeting, the first Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization, to be held in Singapore, will review the implementation of the Uruguay Round agreements and seek to develop a work programme to sustain the momentum of global trade liberalization through further negotiations on specific sectors. The Philippines is strongly committed to the opening up of its economy. In affirming this basic policy of our country, we must ask our economic partners, particularly the developed ones, to desist from circumventing their own commitments to a free international trading regime by providing subsidies to their uncompetitive sectors and by extending them protection in the guise of labour rights or environmental conservation. We must reject this kind of tactic. We must also urge that the subject and object of development — human beings, their welfare and dignity — not be overlooked. We also believe that the status of women is central to both economic growth and human development. The Philippines therefore calls upon all of us to carry out effectively and in full the Platform of Action adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women and to devote adequate resources to make this possible. In accordance with our convictions on the status and rights of women, validated at the Beijing conference, the Philippines has actively pressed for international action to combat those scourges that plague the human race: violence against women and trafficking in women and children. Because of the international dimension of these blights on the human condition, the United Nations and the international community must keep them high on the international agenda until the human race is freed of them. The Philippines and other countries similarly situated have a special concern for women migrant workers because of their peculiar vulnerability to violence and abuse. The Philippines’ stand on the rights of women and children rests on our people’s deep conviction of the inherent sacredness of the rights of all human persons, families and communities everywhere on this planet — their rights to freedom, dignity, participation in their own governance and to development. Our lives, our well-being and our rights are constantly threatened by the activities of transnational criminal gangs. Some of these gangs traffic in drugs. Some steal and smuggle cars. Some deal in the illicit buying and selling of arms. Others engage in terror for a variety of causes. Still others traffic in women, children, or people eager for work. The Philippines is prepared to consider the draft convention proposed by Poland on measures to combat organized crime. We commend Poland for this timely initiative. The United Nations is the keystone of mankind’s efforts on behalf of disarmament, the rule of law in the world’s oceans, the preservation of the Earth and its environment, economic and social development, the fight against organized crime, and the protection of human rights. Because of its central and growing importance in human affairs, the Philippines firmly believes that the United Nations must be constantly renewed and invigorated to enable it to respond to the challenges that face each generation. The Philippines favours the enlargement of the Security Council’s permanent membership through the addition of countries that are politically and economically able and willing to assume the responsibilities of such membership. At the same time, we believe in greater representation on the basis of equitable geographical distribution. The various innovative proposals now on the table deserve close examination. But the issue of membership cannot be considered in isolation; it has to be addressed in the context of reform of the Security Council — reform towards greater transparency and democracy of its working methods and reform towards a more balanced relationship with the General Assembly, 4 which must retain pre-eminence in the affairs of the United Nations. However, no structural changes in the United Nations will be effective unless it is assured of the necessary flow of financial resources. Our Organization, no matter how much reform takes place, can function effectively only if it knows with reasonable certainty whether and when it can pay its staff and meet the other obligations arising from operations that, after all, are mandated, often unanimously, by the Member States themselves. Simple mathematical calculations will demonstrate that the financial crisis of the United Nations cannot be eased unless we all comply with the financial obligations that we freely undertook. We must pay our dues in full, on time and without conditions. Specifically, the United Nations can rest on fairly stable financial foundations if all of us pay our contributions to the regular budget for each year by the end of January of that year. The Philippines favours a revision of the scale of assessments for United Nations contributions so as to reflect current political and economic circumstances. However, logic and consistency dictate that similar adjustments be made in the shares of the countries affected in the capitalization of the international financial institutions, including the World Bank and regional development banks such as the Asian Development Bank. The world’s peace, stability and progress, and the welfare and dignity of its inhabitants, depend in large measure on the United Nations — not on the Secretary- General or the Secretariat alone. Although their role is crucial, they depend above all on us, the Member States, which, together with our peoples, make up the United Nations. We are the United Nations. Let us make it work.