It is with special pleasure that the
Government and the people of the Philippines extend to you, Sir, their warm
felicitations on your assumption of the presidency of the General Assembly at
this session. You were one of the most prominent and vigorous advocates
of freedom and democracy in your country. We in the Philippines watched your
struggle with interest and sympathy, and we joined the rest of the world in
applauding the triumph of that struggle as the triumph of us all. That
triumph led to your elevation to the high office you now hold in your country
and, now, to your election as President of the General Assembly. Your
election, therefore, is a source of special satisfaction for us.
At the same time, we congratulate your predecessor. His Excellency
Ambassador Samir S. Shihabi of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for his excellent
leadership in presiding over the Assembly at its forty-sixth session.
My delegation also warmly welcomes Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali. He brings
to his arduous and exalted mission decades of experience in and deep insight
into the relations among nations and the nature and work of the United
Nations. In less than a year in office, Mr. Boutros-Ghali has demonstrated
not only an unflinching devotion to the work of our Organization but also a
keen sense of the direction it must take in dealing with the great
international issues of our time.
Permit me at this point to express the heartfelt appreciation and
gratitude of the Philippine Government and of the Filipino people for the
generous assistance extended by the members of the world community and
international organizations to the hundreds of thousands of victims of floods
and mud flows from Mt. Pinatubo, whose fury has described by scientists as
"the volcanic eruption of the century". Their dire prediction is that
Mt. Pinatubo's mud flows, which have already buried towns and villages and
turned the once green fields of Central Luzon into a grey and desolate
landscape, will continue its destruction for several more years. As we embark
on large-scale relief and rehabilitation efforts in the affected areas, my
Government would like once more to appeal for assistance from the members of
the international community and organizations even as we thank them for the
help already extended since Mt. Pinatubo erupted in June 1991.
We hold this session of the General Assembly at a moment in history that
has seen the wave of democracy and national freedom sweep the world with
astounding and unprecedented rapidity. This is manifested by, among others,
the roster of new countries admitted to the United Nations this year nations
newly emerged from the confining and oppressive darkness of totalitarian
imperialism: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia,
Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Slovenia, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan. This list of new States, new Members of the United Nations,
reads like a roll of honour in the annals of freedom in our era. We welcome
them, as we also do San Marino, to these halls.
We Filipinos take pride in having been early in the ranks of democracy's
march in recent history. In 1986, through the exercise of people power, we
restored the institutions of democracy in our country. This democratic
restoration found both fulfilment and renewed strength in the national
elections our people conducted five months ago and in the peaceful transfer of
power that resulted from the supreme exercise of the democratic process.
The very fact of that peaceful transfer of power through free elections
has affirmed, for all to see, the political stability of our land and, no
doubt, contributed to the climate of peace and stability in our region.
In pursuance of national stability and peace, our new leadership, under
President Fidel V. Ramos, has embarked on a policy and mission of
reconciliation among our people, closing divisions, healing wounds and
reaching out to all. Among the measures we have taken is the granting of
amnesty to those disaffected groups which had taken the path of rebellion of
whatever ideological or religious persuasion they might be, to whatever
organizational or ethnic affiliation they might belong.
Elected under the banner of people empowerment, our new leadership has
chosen, through its policies, to ride the crest of the wave of economic
liberalization that has inexorably rolled across the world and has, in so many
nations, improved so many lives in so short a time. We have chosen this path
for the same reason others have done because we believe that it is the best
road to sustained economic growth and a better life for our people.
Our new leadership, immediately upon assuming office, committed itself
unequivocally to the liberalization of our trading regime and of the rules
governing investments in our country. We have removed virtually all
foreign-exchange controls, thus facilitating the international movement of
currency. The privatization of key public industries proceeds apace.
Consistent with the new primacy of commerce and economics in relations between
nations, we have placed trade and economic relations at the top of our
diplomatic priorities.
Only a few weeks ago, in Jakarta, the capital city of our Indonesian
neighbour, we joined the Non-Aligned Movement, in which the Philippines had
been an observer for many years. Far from being rendered irrelevant by the
end of the cold war, the Non-Aligned Movement, we found, was larger, stronger
and even more relevant than ever before. Many of the old divisions in the
Movement had closed, and a new cohesion had been found. Moreover, the
Movement had turned more of its attention to problems of trade, finance,
technology and all those other things that make up economic relations between
nations.
The end of the cold war may have greatly diminished the likelihood of
worldwide conflict and global cataclysm, but it has given rise to new
challenges that are just as threatening for the peoples of many nations and
regions, even as many of the old issues remain unresolved.
The weight of their external debt continues to crush the economies of
many developing countries, including those countries, like the Philippines,
which have made strenuous efforts to pay their debts religiously. Surely,
with some imagination and creativity, and a modicum of good will and
enlightened self-interest, the nations of the world can, together, arrive at
some solution that would allow the debtor countries to develop and get out
from under the crushing burden of their debt. At the very least, the debtor
countries should be given access to their actual and potential markets without
any artificial restrictions, to allow them to develop their economies and
improve the lives of their peoples while they continue to service their debts
from meagre resources.
More and more of the world's nations have adhered ever more strongly to
the proposition that economic liberalization is vital to the improvement of
industrial productivity and the generation of economic growth. And yet, most
ironically, protectionist barriers continue to rise and to hamper the flow of
goods and services. The world's peoples call upon the international
community, in particular upon the developed countries, to lay aside narrow
self-interest and push forward the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade
negotiations to a speedy and successful conclusion.
The formation of trading blocs in some areas has aroused the apprehension
of countries outside those blocs with respect to their potential for
artificially diverting trade and investment, diversions damaging to the
efficiency of the global economic system. We in the Association of South-East
Asian Nations (ASEAN) have committed ourselves to the formation of an ASEAN
free trade area that would facilitate trade among ourselves. But we are
determined to keep ourselves open to world trade, on which our economies
depend so much.
Each country has an inalienable right to development. And the United
Nations has a paramount role in seeing to it that it is realized. The ongoing
restructuring and revitalization process in the economic and social fields
should therefore be geared towards the effective discharge of this role by the
United Nations system.
The continuing scourge of poverty, the rapid increase in population, the
uneven rate of economic growth among countries and the asymmetry in the
economic and social structures of nations, together with the dazzling advances
in transportation and communication, have given rise to a new phenomenon of
our times: the massive migration of labour. As one of the largest sources of
this migration, the Philippines is convinced that it is now time for the
international community to deal with this phenomenon no longer in haphazard
and isolated ways, but on a planned and strategic basis and on an
international scale.
In so doing, we would do well to heed the appeal of the Secretary-General
to accord deeper understanding and respect to the rights and needs of the more
vulnerable groups of society. A substantial part of the migration of labour
is the thousands of young women from many developing countries who venture
forth to more affluent countries in search of a better life for themselves and
their families, only to fall victim to unspeakable abuse, in many cases to
violence, sometimes ending in death, simply because they are women. Roaming
the streets of the world are 145 million children homeless, hungry,
neglected, in most cases victims of abuse and mistreatment by adults.
Thousands of the disabled and the aging, particularly in the developing
countries, are cast away, stripped of their dignity, from the mainstream of
society.
The untrammelled population growth in many regions, the profligate use of
the Earth's resources and the pollution of the land, water and air have
severely damaged the Earth's life-sustaining ecology in many places,
threatening the livelihoods of farmers and fishermen and the health of
everyone. It was therefore with a keen sense of hope and high expectations
that the Philippines participated in the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro last June. At that Conference,
the collective will of the international community was marshalled at the
highest level of leadership on behalf of the sustainable development of our
Earth and its resources. The Philippines applauds its considerable
achievements and remains committed to its goals and ideals, as embodied in
Agenda 21, the implementation of which requires adequate new and additional
financial resources.
To carry out on a national scale the objectives set forth in Agenda 21,
my President has created the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development,
which counts non-governmental organizations and, particularly, the youth among
its members. I am also pleased to announce that, in observance of the
International Year for the World's Indigenous People, the Philippines will
host in April next year a Global Youth Earth Summit or Global YES in
cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Youth Forum
and with the full endorsement and support of the United Nations Development
Programme, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization, and the International Labour Organisation. I appeal to the
world to support this undertaking.
The cold war's end has lifted a great pall of global threat from over the
Earth and closed a fundamental division in the international community. It
has thus opened new vistas of hope for peace and global security, directly
leading to major advances in some of the world's hitherto intractable
conflicts: Afghanistan, Cambodia, the Middle East, Central America, South
Africa. Nevertheless, intra-regional and intra-national conflicts continue to
ravage people's lives and homes.
The end of super-Power confrontation and the dissolution of empires and
blocs have freed nations and dismantled tyrannies. They have also unleashed
age-old hostilities between antagonistic groups and released them to erupt in
tragic violence. These conflicts, new and old, have taken various forms and
dimensions.
In the Middle East, movement in the peace process has given rise to new,
albeit modest, hopes. However, hope must be tempered still, as the basic
cause of conflict the denial of a homeland and sovereignty to the
Palestinian people remains unresolved.
In South Africa, the institutions of apartheid have been dismantled, a
hopeful development that can be attributed in no small measure to the resolute
and patient efforts of the United Nations and the international community. We
are heartened that the stalled negotiations on the future of that country may
finally get back on track with the expected resumption of the Convention for a
Democratic South Africa. In Somalia, intertribal warfare conspires with the
cruelties of nature to inflict upon the people of that unhappy land death by
violence or starvation. The people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, specifically
its Muslim population, are subjected to the barbarity of ethnic cleansing and
the horrors of fratricidal war while the international community helplessly
looks on. Similar forms, if not similar degrees, of ethnic violence have
erupted in some places in the former Soviet Union.
In our own region of South-East Asia, in Cambodia, a peace agreement
painstakingly worked out by the United Nations, the Association of South-East
Asian Nations (ASEAN), other interested Governments and the Cambodian
factions themselves has provided for and led to the mounting of the largest
peace-keeping operation of the United Nations and the assumption of one of its
gravest responsibilities, the United Nations Transitional Authority for
Cambodia, to which the Philippines has contributed a contingent of policemen
and naval observers. However, one of the factions has, of late, chosen not to
participate further in the peace process until its conditions, some of which
go beyond the terms of the Paris peace Agreement, are met. It is now the
responsibility of the international community to ensure that the fabric of
imminent peace does not unravel and to place the peace process back on track.
Conflicting claims in the South China Sea have given rise to acute
concern among the countries involved and other States with interests in the
area. Last July the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN issued in Manila the ASEAN
Declaration on the South China Sea, calling on all claimants to settle their
disputes peacefully, pledging to embark on cooperative endeavours in the area
and inviting all parties concerned to subscribe to the Declaration. Dialogues
have been taking place in the region involving officials and academicians from
the claimant States and other interested parties. It is our hope that these
dialogues will help to avert misunderstanding and conflict and eventually lead
to the day when this vast, vital and strategic portion of the sea can be
transformed from an area of incipient tension into a region of enduring peace
and cooperation. All these fall squarely under the purposes and principles of
the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in South-East Asia, which the
signatories, including the Philippines, are requesting the General Assembly to
endorse at this session.
Thus, even as the world welcomes the cold war's end and the march of
freedom and democracy across the earth, in the relations among nations old
wounds fester, break out and recur and new ones are opened. And yet hopes run
higher than they have ever done since the last great war. These hopes are
focused especially on the new possibilities for the United Nations in its
mission of preventing war, making peace, keeping the peace and building for
peace. In this new era of opportunity it is both possible and imperative for
the United Nations to discharge the role envisioned for it by the Charter as
the primary keeper of peace and security in the world.
It is therefore extremely fitting that in his first report on the work of
the Organization our new Secretary-General dwells almost exclusively on this
role of the United Nations and the opportunities opened for it by the historic
changes of recent times.
The Philippines welcomes the Secretary-General's report, "An Agenda for
Peace Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping," and is studying
it with great attention. We commend it to the world for serious
consideration, for it seeks to bring the United Nations back to its roots as
an organization with an effective capacity to make peace and keep the peace.
The report is filled with wise, timely and practical prescriptions, and I
should like to single out a few.
We support the Secretary-General's call for an enlarged and more
effective role for the International Court of Justice. We join the
Secretary-General in reaffirming the Manila Declaration on the Peaceful
Settlement of International Disputes, as approved by the General Assembly. We
endorse his recognition of the need to relieve the economic difficulties of
States that are affected by sanctions imposed on another State under
Article 41 of the Charter.
We commend for especially close consideration the Secretary-General's
bold proposals for giving life to Chapter Vll of the Charter, particularly
Article 42, which authorizes the Security Council to take military action to
maintain or restore international peace and security, and Article 43, which
mandates Members of the United Nations to place armed forces and facilities on
call for this purpose.
Granting the United Nations increased power and greater authority for
peace-keeping and enforcement action would gain stronger support from the
international community if the Security Council could function with a greater
degree of democracy than heretofore. Why, for example, should a region with
approximately 15 per cent of the world's population and 23 per cent of the
total membership of the United Nations have 40 per cent representation in the
Security Council this year, with three having the power of veto?
Clearly, that is a legitimate question. However, the composition of the
Security Council is but one of the provisions in the Charter that could stand
improvement. My delegation appreciates current efforts to restructure and
revitalize the economic and social sectors of the United Nations and to reform
both the General Assembly and the Secretariat. We note, however, that such
efforts are often limited by a hesitation to review the United Nations Charter
itself.
Addressing the work of the Special Committee on the Charter and the
Strengthening of the Role of the Organization during the twenty-ninth session
of the General Assembly, the then Philippine Foreign Minister,
General Carlos P. Romulo, said:
"At no time in history has it been more clear that the many and
closely interrelated global problems that beset us will not yield to
piecemeal and national solutions. The paramount importance of the United
Nations as the capstone of human society has been reaffirmed with great
force by the momentous events even of this single year. The design of a
new world economic order, the mobilizing of world agriculture, a global
approach to population problems, the equitable redistribution of world
economic resources, the achievement of disarmament and peace all
require an ever more effective and more efficient world Organization.
"For these reasons, it is more than ever appropriate that we are
continuing our consideration of the improvement of the United Nations
itself. The centrality of the United Nations is obvious and
inescapable. The increasing value of the United Nations is undoubted.
But its rate of adaptation to rapidly moving world affairs is doubted;
its adequacy to perform the functions thrust upon it by its Members, and
simply by the urgent course of world history, is doubted.
"When we began this discussion in 1970, on the twenty-fifth
anniversary of our world Organization, the effort seemed pertinent
enough. But now, as we continue, the accelerating pace of change in the
world has already caught up with us and threatens to pass us by. The
mechanisms of the United Nations are increasingly creaky and primitive in
light of the task of plenary management that the Organization is
increasingly called upon to assume. While the prescience of the founders
was remarkable, and they succeeded in designing a flexible and adaptable
Organization with a Charter of enduring worth, at the same time it was
wholly impossible for them to anticipate the speed with which events
would carry us into the interdependent global age and the requirements
that would be placed on our world body."
General Romulo, who happened to be my father and one of the founders of
the United Nations, made these remarks in 1974. He might as well be making
them today. I do not wish to state the obvious, but I know that my father's
message rings loud and clear in this Hall. Let us now proceed to rectify the
omissions of the past.
Towards this end, the Philippine delegation submits that the time has
come for the United Nations to avail itself of the provisions of Article 109
regarding the convening of a General Conference to review the Charter. My
delegation will consult with like-minded Members in the coming year with a
view to definitively addressing this proposal, specifically through a
resolution calling for such a review conference, which, according to the
Charter itself, should have been placed on the agenda of the General Assembly
10 years after its adoption in 1945.
We are only three years shy of the fiftieth anniversary of our
Organization. Its celebration, we believe, would be further enhanced by the
adoption and implementation of such a resolution. Through it, we hope to
contribute to the noble work of making the United Nations a truly effective
instrument, as the signatories envisioned it to be, for saving "succeeding
generations from the scourge of war" and for promoting "social progress and
better standards of life in larger freedom". The confluence of historic
events in our time presents us with a unique opportunity to fulfil the mandate
from our founders. Let us prove ourselves worthy of their trust.