63. May I be permitted to begin by joining with those who have preceded me in expressing the wish and the hope of my delegation, and mine personally, for the prompt recovery of our President, Mr. Belaúnde, so that he may rejoin us and let us have the benefit of his leadership.
64. Also, may I publicly express our most heartfelt condolences to the Government and the people of Ceylon for the irreparable loss that they have suffered in the untimely death of their late great Prime Minister.
65. Finally, may I be permitted to publicly reiterate our most sincere sympathy to our friendly good neighbour, Japan, to her Government and her people, for the terrible ravages that the typhoon has caused to their country.
66. The General Assembly has convened this year in an atmosphere of hope. Not since 1946, when this body held its first session, have there been such happy auguries of peace and understanding among the nations.
67. The cold war, which has divided the world for more than a decade, is today being subjected to the warmer winds of conciliation, mutual accommodation and neighbourly living. In the very middle of an armaments race that has created weapons capable of annihilating mankind and destroying this planet, we have suddenly come to realize that the old historic struggles among nations for power, wealth and influence, based on military might, have lost all meaning or relevance.
68. The message which the artificial satellites and the rockets to the moon have written across the heavens consists of the fateful words: "Learn to live in peace — or die.”
69. love is a better counsellor than fear. But since the love of peace has, in the past, availed little to' deter mankind from making war, we may hope that the common fear of universal death will now impel humanity to discover the means of living together in a condition of tolerance, justice and peace.
70. We must believe that humanity has the necessary will and ability to do this; that man will, in time, be able to hold in check his age-old propensities to selfishness, greed and cruelty, and allow his better instincts to fashion a suitable response to the iron necessity of survival.
71. The most auspicious event since the advent of the cold war is surely the exchange of visits between Premier Khrushchev and President Eisenhower. When the plan for this exchange was first) announced, our President, Carlos P. Garcia, of the Philippines, warmly hailed the news in a public statement in which he expressed the fervent hope that the exchange of visits between the heads of the world's two most powerful States would contribute to the establishment of a just and enduring peace for all mankind.
72. We are well aware that this kind of peace cannot be made by one single act, however dramatic, nor achieved by wishful thinking through Utopian means. We understand clearly that ideal objectives must be subjected to the test of realistic solutions. The heavy burden of accumulated wrong, the age-old heritage of suspicion and hate, oppression and injustice cannot be suddenly wished away by waving a magic wand. We must work with these unhappy realities of the world as they are, and strive patiently to let man's generous instincts provide an eventual and effective healing.
73. The task before us is long and hard, but the important thing is to make a beginning. And an honest beginning can only be made if, first of all, we stop adding to what I have already described as man's heavy burden of accumulated wrong and age-old heritage of suspicion and hate, oppression and injustice. This means, in effect, that even while we strive to remedy the evils of the past we must earnestly determine to prevent new evils from arising.
74. I represent here a small country whose people love freedom and justice as much as they desire peace. For the sake of peace and human survival, they would wish sincerely that the spirit of conciliation, which is moving amongst us, will continue to improve the relations among the great Powers. At the same time, loving freedom and justice as they do, our people equally fervently wish that no country will ever try to use its capacity to wage war, including nuclear war, as an instrument to intimidate others into surrendering their just rights and their cherished liberties. For his would be the surest way to incur the very risk of universal death and destruction which, by the methods of conciliation and accommodation, we are endeavouring earnestly to avoid.
75. Our country has never had a military tradition and could ill afford one. We live under a Constitution which, when it was promulgated in 1935, became the first in history to renounce war as an instrument of national policy. If we now take up the question of general disarmament, it is only because small countries like ours have at stake not only their own prospects of survival but also their hopes for a more abundant life.
76. It has, therefore, been immensely heartening for us to observe-the great military Powers come closer to an agreement on what has been called the great imperative of our time. It would not seem impossible to reconcile the proposals advanced in this Assembly by Mr. Khrushchev [799th meeting] with those advanced by the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom [798th meeting], France [814th meeting], and the United States [797th meeting]. Total disarmament in four years has to be, with all due respect, regarded as Utopian. Four years is too brief a time within which to sweep aside the habits, instincts, and inherited fears of the whole of human history, and complete and general disarmament is, for the present at least, only the ultimate goal to which all men of peace and goodwill should strive.
77. But I trust it is not mere wishful thinking to perceive positive progress toward disarmament by stages and under adequate international control and inspection. The tacit understanding among the nuclear Powers to suspend further tests, the exchange of proposals on the limitation of conventional armaments, the slow but thorough discussion of protection against surprise attacks; all these give us reason to hope that the great military Powers are developing a habit of agreement.
78. We derive particular satisfaction from the approach suggested by Mr. Selwyn Lloyd when he pointed out that "if we can get political settlement it will make agreement on disarmament easier; if we can get an agreement on disarmament, it will make political settlements easier" [798th meeting, para. 41]. This, it seems to us, is the most sensible resolution of the vicious circle in which the disarmament question has for so long been caught.
79. For our part, we feel that a country like the Philippines can best contribute to progress toward disarmament by helping to create and maintain a world opinion favourable to it. It is for this reason that we cannot welcome any addition to the number of States now possessing nuclear weapons. What does it add to the security of either camp in our divided world to have four instead of three, five instead of four, among them equipped with these devices, when either of the two principal Powers can now condemn us to annihilation? What will it profit mankind to put more poison into the air that we and our children breathe?
80. We begrudge the vast treasures that have been spent on being able to kill more men, women and children at one blow, because we believe that all this vast expenditure could better have been spent on being able to keep millions of men- women, and children alive.
81. We would not appear too demanding. We realize that, in the present situation, great Powers must give priority to their own security. We appreciate the assistance that the Philippines and other countries have already received under the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance. We are impressed by the activities of the ILO, of FAO, UNESCO, UNICEF and other specialized agencies, and we are particularly pleased that the regional office of WHO has been established in Manila.
82. Perhaps this is not an entirely inappropriate occasion to suggest at the same time that the benefits of these technical assistance programmes to the peoples who are their beneficiaries could be substantially increased if, without sacrificing efficiency, the expenses of their administration and operation could be reduced.
83. It might be desirable to assign and recruit technicians for service under these programmes from among the nationals of the recipient country or region concerned. In the Philippines, at least, we feel that, at the present time, there are sufficient technicians among our own people, properly trained at home and abroad, who could be used for the purposes of these programmes so long as sufficient funds are made available to them.
84. The Special Fund established at the thirteenth session of the General Assembly [resolution 1240 (XIII)] is now in actual operation. The less-developed countries, including the Philippines, look to it with hope because it attempts to carry into the new field of economic and financial assistance the measures of technical aid which were provided under the previously existing programmes.
85. One of the two outstanding achievements of our time, no less important than the progress in the nuclear and inter-space sciences, is the accelerated pace of the liberation and emancipation of subject or dependent peoples everywhere. In a little over a decade since the end of the Second World War, the resurgence of the peoples of Asia and the emergence of the peoples of Africa has led to the liberation in rapid succession of no less than six hundred million dependent peoples, or approximately one-fourth of the human race. The trend of developing events would indicate that sooner or later, perhaps within the next five or ten years, some two hundred million more who still remain under political subjection will be set free.
86. The truly revolutionary element in this movement is that, in nearly all cases of national liberation since the end of the Second World War, the result was achieved by just, peaceful and democratic means. The Philippines, which was the first country in modern history to win its freedom and independence by peaceful agreement with the sovereign Power, is thus committed by its own historic experience to support the just aspirations of all peoples to have a life and destiny of their own.
87. In the same spirit, the Philippines wishes to express profound concern over the fate of two countries of Asia, namely Korea and Viet-Nam, which continue to be divided and partitioned. We would like to express the hope that the peoples of these countries will be afforded a just opportunity to achieve national unification by peaceful and democratic means, and that they may soon be permitted to join us as Members of the United Nations.
88. The Philippines will continue to lend its support to all measures that will enhance the "dignity and worth of the human person" and to help ensure that men may live in larger freedom and in full enjoyment of fundamental human rights. To this end, my delegation will cooperate toward the early conclusion of United Nations action on the draft International Covenants on Human Rights. We adhere, as heretofore, to our well known position that freedom of the Press and of information is the "touchstone of all the other freedoms" for which the United Nations has always stood.
89. We, therefore, welcome the decision to discuss the draft Convention on Freedom of Information [resolution 1313 C (XIII)]. Furthermore we welcome the inclusion in the agenda of the fourteenth session of the item on the Draft Declaration of the Bights of the Child [agenda item 64].
90. The Philippines will continue likewise to support the programme of the Secretary-General in the matter of advisory services in the field of human rights [A/4132, p. 49].
91. In the legal field, my Government has always viewed with favour the establishment of a multilateral convention on diplomatic intercourse and immunities. The present usages and practices vary from country to country, thereby at times causing confusion. A convention will not only help secure the greatest possible uniformity in those usages and practices, but will also help to promote better relations among States.
92. Subject to certain reservations, the draft Articles on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities which were prepared by the International Law Commission during its tenth session are considered by my Government as a sufficient working basis for the formulation of a convention on the subject.
93. We in Asia and in the other less-developed regions hope and expect that the sun of peace that is dawning on the summits of power will eventually warm and comfort the humble and the poor of the world.
94. We are happy to join our President, in hoping that this will come to be known as "the Assembly of peace". We welcome the growing agreement of the principal military Powers to co-operate in making that noble wish come true.
95. We are, ready, within the limits of our modest resources, to work with all for a peace of reconciliation, a peace of general progress and a peace of justice and liberty.