41. Madam President, it has
been ten years since I last took part in the deliberations of
the General Assembly. I consider it a privilege to return to
this rostrum as leader of the Philippine delegation and in
that capacity to extend to you my sincere felicitations on
your election to the highest office attainable in this
distinguished body.
42. Twenty years ago, as President of the fourth session of
the General Assembly, I had the great honour of occupying
the same exalted position. I remember it as a unique
vantage point, providing an exhilarating view of the state of
the world. But it is also the point of convergence of the
world’s problems. I know from experience what a lonely
eminence the office of President can be and how heavy its
burdens can become. My assurance, therefore, of the
unstinting support and co-operation of ‘my delegation is
more than a ritualistic gesture. It is a token of recognition
of the magnitude of your task and an expression of earnest
hope for your success as President of what we all pray will
be a constructive and fruitful session of the Assembly.
43. The sombre context of our deliberations has been
accentuated by the death in office of your distinguished
predecessor, Mr. Arenales of Guatemala. He was a man of
brilliance and perception. He had an even rarer quality:
moral courage. At the risk of being misunderstood, of
becoming unpopular, he dared to do his duty by speaking
what he conceived to be the truth about certain weaknesses
of the United Nations. His intellectual honesty was
matched by his uncompromising devotion to the high office
entrusted to him. We feel his loss keenly.
44. Permit me first of all to state the Philippine position
on some of the pressing problems on our agenda.
45. We share the profound concern about the deteriorating
situation in the Middle East, where the protagonists
appear to be once again on the brink of open war. We have
pondered this intractable problem deeply, weighing carefully
in our minds and in our consciences the various
solutions proposed. Mindful of the claims, the interests and
the aspirations of both sides, and considering them in the
context of the common need for the restoration of peace
with justice in that troubled area, we maintain our support
for the Security Council’s resolution of 22 November 1967
[242 (1967)] as the basis for an equitable settlement.
46. We remain opposed to the admission of Communist
China into the United Nations and this is a position we shall
maintain as long as Communist China pursues its intransigent
policies and its support of so-called wars of national
liberation which so often masks aggression by proxy. Like
its other Asian neighbours, we are prepared to coexist with
Communist China and the Chinese people but we have a
right to insist that coexistence be based on mutual respect
and scrupulous regard for international law.
47. We look forward to a negotiated settlement of the war
in Viet-Nam but frankly hope that it will not be a peace at
any price. The people of South Viet-Nam have the
fundamental right to determine freely their own destiny in
accordance with the principle of self-determination. They
have earned that right in the crucible of war. They should
not be deprived of it at the peace table.
48. We note with alarm and anxiety the lack of progress
reported by the Secretary-General in the crucial field of
disarmament. This continuing impasse, reflecting a basic
disagreement between the two super-Powers, fosters a
global climate of insecurity which makes it more difficult
to settle particular disputes like those in the Middle East
and Viet-Nam. We shall lend our full support to all
initiatives towards effective disarmament and international
control of strategic nuclear weapons and the prevention of
the development, production and stockpiling of chemical
and bacteriological (biological) weapons.
49. We remain fully committed to the protection and
promotion of fundamental human rights, mindful of the
fact that their violation anywhere in the world constitutes a
direct threat to peace as well as a derogation of the essential
dignity of man.
50. At this juncture I should like to refer briefly—and in
the most friendly way—to the Philippine claim to Sabah.
We are pledged to pursue this claim only by peaceful,
orderly means under the rule of law, and therefore we
reiterate our standing proposal to submit the case to the
International Court of Justice, by whose decision the
Malaysian Government and ourselves should abide. This
step is in consonance with the Manila Accord of 1963,
under which Malaysia and the Philippines agreed:
“...to bring the claim to a just and expeditious
solution by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation,
arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other
peaceful means of the parties’ own choice in conformity
with the Charter of the United Nations and the Bandung
Declaration”.
51. I submit that it is hardly possible to envisage a more
friendly and reasonable approach to this particular problem.
A further touchstone of Philippine sincerity in this matter
is our continued co-operation with Malaysia in the regional
economic and social programmes of ASEAN, the Association
of South-East Asian Nations, which also includes our
good neighbours, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand. Moreover,
the Philippines, having regard to Malaysia’s recent
difficulties, has exercised the utmost restraint with respect
to this question, which, we continue to hope, could be
adjudicated by mutual consent.
52. I now turn to the more general issues of concern to
this Assembly. It gives one pause to realize that the United
Nations is not yet a quarter of a century old. In 1944, as an
observer for the Philippines, which at that time had not yet
regained its independence, I was a witness to the historic
initial steps to organize the United Nations at Dumbarton
Oaks in Washington, and afterwards I had the honour to
lead the Philippines delegation at the formal founding of
the United Nations in San Francisco. That was in 1945,
only twenty-four years ago. Yet it seems already to belong
to another age.
53. The reason is partly because the pace of change in our
world has become so rapid that it is no longer measureable
by the ordinary time scale, and partly because its depth and
scope are transforming life and society everywhere on our
planet to a degree unprecedented in history. It is hardly an
exaggeration to say that we are today living in a different
world from the one for which the United Nations Charter
was designed twenty-four years ago.
54. Among the changes affecting the structure of the
United Nations is the emergence of super-Powers possessing
ultimate weapons in over-kill quantity but unable to impose
peace and order in the world. ‘one of us who signed the
Charter in San Francisco knew anything about the atom
bomb.
55. Another is the emergence of Africa as a major factor
in world affairs.
56. Yet another is the dynamic resurgence of Asia after
centuries of lethargy under Western domination. China,
whose ancient civilization was a fertile source of inventions
helpful to the build-up of Western power and affluence, has
acquired the nuclear technology needed to reclaim its place
among the great Powers. Then again, responding belatedly
to the challenge of the industrial revolution, Japan
nevertheless has forged to the front rank of today’s economic
giants, sparking what may turn out to be a new Asian
renaissance.
57. It is also in Asia that the political limits to the exercise
of great military power are being most sharply defined and
restrained. Asia is in the process of firmly establishing a
principle applicable to other regions, namely, that Asian
problems are primarily the concern and responsibility of
the Asian countries themselves.
58. They—the Asians—are asserting, in the words of His
Excellency President Ferdinand E.Marcos of the
Philippines, their right to “a rule compatible with the
recovered dignity of their new status, and, in keeping with
the purposes of Asian nationalism, demanding that others
place their relationship with them on a basis of equality and
mutual respect”.
59. Relevant to the new relationship between Asian and
non-Asian Powers that might be formed after the war in
Viet-Nam has ended is President Marcos’ perceptive
warning:
“To function in Asia without full Asian support is to
build on shifting sand. The greater the power projected
from outside into Asia, the more compelling the need
that it should operate in harmony with Asian aspirations,
towards goals compatible with Asian independence and
dignity.”
60. There is a portentous stirring among the peoples of
Asia today as they become more and more deeply involved
in the great enterprise of transforming their ancient
societies through economic and social development. As in
other parts of the developing world, Asia’s youth is in the
forefront of this gathering march towards that glittering
goal of the Charter: “better standards of life in larger
freedom”.
61. I believe that this Assembly should pay special
attention to the emergence of youth as one of the most
important factors in the process of change in the developing
countries. The Secretary-General’s observations on this
point are worth pondering. In his statement at the opening
of the forty-seventh session of the Economic and Social
Council in Geneva on 14 July 1969, he finds that:
"... while science and technology speed forward with
inventions and discoveries which were beyond imagination
even a few decades ago, young people are less
content with the sluggishness of the institutions and the
structures of political, economic and social life. Many of
them are impatient, understandably impatient, with
injustice and they question the existing channels of
institutional change...
“It seems obvious that, during the years ahead, societies
all over the world will have to adapt their priorities and
allocate their resources to take into account the demands
of youth.”
62. I feel that it would be useful to bring to the
Assembly’s attention the conclusions of some of the past
Presidents of the General Assembly, some Permanent
Representatives and other friends of the United Nations
who participated in the fourth conference on the United
Nations of the next decade which was held in Quebec from
22 to 27 June 1969 under the auspices of the Stanley
Foundation. A sense of profound, pervasive, revolutionary
change, presenting mankind with both danger and opportunity,
informed their deliberation and manifests itself in
the joint statement in which they sought to convey a
message of warning well worth reiterating from this
rostrum. It is a warning that coincides with the significant
alert sounded by Secretary-General U Thant in the introduction
to his report that is before us—a report which is
marked by a sustained tone of gloom, and in which he says
that “time is running out” [A/7601/Add.1, para. 198] for
efforts to save world peace. The Quebec statement of past
Presidents and Permanent Representatives and students of
political science declared:
“As we enter the 1970s, the world sits on time bombs:
an accelerating arms race, rising racial hostility, exploding
population, the widening economic development gap and
the lag of human institutions behind scientific progress.
“Major changes in the United Nations are needed to
make it more capable of maintaining peace, justice and
freedom under law...
“New opportunities lie before us. New roles for the
United Nations are opened by world problems such as
population, pollution, and the new frontiers of the
sea-bed and outer space. Increasing international contacts
and the growing interdependence of nations compel new
forms of co-operation. The failures of old structures and
programmes open the door for new. The idealism of
many young people, and their determination to participate
in building a better world, should be enlisted to
strengthen the United Nations.
“The twenty-fifth birthday of the United Nations in
1970 should be more than mere ceremony. It is time for a
searching examination of the strengths and weaknesses of
the United Nations—and new determination to make the
United Nations adequate to the dangers and opportunities
of the 1970s.”
63. Those are the considered views of some of the past
Assembly Presidents and a group of political scientists and
United Nations representatives who conferred in Quebec on
the role of the United Nations in the coming decade. Their
suggestion that major changes be made to update the
United Nations and make it a more efficient instrument for
achieving the goals of the Charter deserve, I believe, the
most careful consideration by this Assembly.
64. During their tenure, these past Presidents served the
General Assembly with the whole-hearted dedication that
has become an honoured tradition. They have since kept in
close touch with United Nations affairs meeting together
with other close observers and students of the world.
Organization in 1965 in San Francisco, in 1967 in
Burgenstock, Switzerland, and again in 1968 in Dubrovnik,
Yugoslavia. The joint statement of their meeting last spring,
to which I have referred, is a succinct summing-up of the
most urgent of the major concerns of the United Nations.
More than that, it provides the basis for an agenda for
constructive action in the next decade.
65. A fundamental review of the structure, powers, and
procedure of the United Nations is an important item in the
Quebec agenda. It is a proposal which my delegation
considers both appropriate and timely. It is true that the
purposes and principles of the Charter were, in a very real
sense, written for the ages—valid not only for this generation
or the next but also for the generations to follow. But
the machinery and the methods for their realization were
not meant to be immutable. After twenty-four years it is
certainly necessary to scrutinize them closely and see how
they may be made more useful and effective in our rapidly
changing world.
66. That was the reason for the provision in Article 109
for a General Conference to review the Charter ten years
after its coming into force. That Conference unfortunately
was not held; we were told by the great Powers that it
might open a Pandora’s box of problems. No one has
checked if the lock on that Pandora’s box has remained in
place. If it has, the box itself must be full of holes, because
the problems it is supposed to contain are out in force,
bedevilling the United Nations and its Member countries—
and making it an ineffective instrument for peace.
67. First in 1955, then in 1966, the Philippines formally
reiterated its proposal for a review of the Charter. On 21
September 1966, in his address to the General Assembly,
President Marcos declared:
“... the review and revision of the Charter... already
years overdue ...can no longer be deferred. A whole new
world has emerged” —and come into being in the twenty
years since San Francisco—“the Charter should faithfully
reflect the realities and the vital needs of this new world.
Only thus can the United Nations become an instrument
fully responsive to the aims and aspirations of Member
nations...” [1411th meeting, para. 29].
“For the United Nations itself, there is a clear and
admitted need to perfect its organization, to improve the
techniques employed in its manifold operations, and to
bring to its work, particularly in the developing countries,
an even greater sense of mission and dedication.”
[Ibid., para, 28.]
68. My delegation would tike to see included in the agenda
of the next session of the General Assembly, coinciding
with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the United Nations, an
item on the review of the United Nations Charter. We
envisage three main areas of change.
69. The first would be functional. It would include
measures to ensure: first, that this general debate—this
important function in which we are now engaged—should
be more meaningful, more productive, less wordy, and
closely geared to the vital problems confronting the
Assembly, not local parochial, national problems, intended
only for home consumption; secondly, that the decision-making
process, including the voting procedures, should
facilitate the taking of more effective and realistic decisions
capable of being translated into viable programmes enjoying
wide support; and thirdly, that there should be more
effective co-ordination of United Nations activities and
programmes, with overlapping agencies duly integrated and
assessment procedures established to make certain that
maximum results are achieved and that proliferation of
agencies stop.
70. The second principal area of change would be, in the
broad sense, political. It would include measures to improve
the peace-keeping capacity of the United Nations; enhance
its ability to initiate collective security arrangements in
areas vulnerable to aggression or subversion; and augment
its resources for conciliation, mediation and arbitration of
international disputes.
71. The third main area of change would be in the
economic and social fields. It would centre on measures to
facilitate the formulation of a global strategy for development,
based on a workable partnership between the rich
and the poor nations intended to bridge the steadily
widening poverty gap which threatens to tear the international
community asunder in the coming decade. This is a
crisis we must watch because it is coming.
72. In due course, the Philippine delegation will submit
specific proposals spelling out the changes I have briefly
touched upon. We are well aware that structural reforms
alone will be futile without the will to translate the Charter
into reality. But we consider it wise to have the instrument
ready when the will to make it work manifests itself, as it
must if the survival of man in conditions of dignity and
peace is to be assured.
73. This is all the more necessary, in our view, as the time
draws near for embarking on the Second United Nations
Development Decade. The preparations for this momentous
undertaking should provide a common ground for the
concerted efforts required to cope successfully in the 1970s
with the same formidable challenge that the First Development
Decade, unfortunately, has failed to surmount.
74. On the part of the United Nations, two major reviews
of far-reaching implications to international co-operation
for economic development are in the process of being
completed. The first is Sir Robert Jackson’s “capacity
study” for the United Nations Development Programme.
The second is the “grand assize”’ of international assistance
for the past two decades which the World Bank has
commissioned another past President of the General
Assembly, Mr. Lester Pearson, to conduct. It is our earnest
hope that these two searching reviews will help provide a
firmer basis for the vastly expanded international effort
needed to ensure the success of the Second Development
Decade.
75. For their part, the developing countries of Asia, Africa
and Latin America should consult more closely together on
a common strategy for the coming decade. The Government
of Chile has taken a commendable initiative in gaining
the support of the developed countries for a declaration of
Latin American views of how to accelerate economic and
social development in the 1970s as expressed in the historic
consensus of Viña del Mar of 17 May 1969. In the
Organization of African Unity the African countries have
an effective instrument for consultation and joint planning.
A parallel effort could be made by the Asian countries.
Collaboration within UNCTAD makes available to the three
regional groups workable modes of high-level co-operation
which could be expanded to suit the requirements of a
common strategy for the Second Development Decade.
76. On the part of the developed countries, what is
required above all is the basic decision, duly reflected in
their policies on international aid and trade, to help the
developing countries achieve the target of 6 to 7 per cent
annual average growth rate in the next decade. The
Secretary-General, in his statement at the opening session
of the conference on the Second United Nations Development
Decade on 9 May 1969, considers it
“... tragic that, at the very moment in history when
assistance efforts are beginning to yield results, public and
official support in the aid-giving countries appears to be
weakening“.
The Secretary-General says that that is tragic, and I believe
it is more than tragic, it can be fatal.
77. The Secretary-General finds it ironic that many people
in the rich countries who realize the cost and the dangers of
neglecting poverty at home “seem unable to apply the
lessons of their domestic experience to the shrinking world
in which they live“.
78. In his statement at the opening of the Economic and
Social Council, the Secretary-General notes that adequate
resources are available, given the political will to use them.
He says:
“I continue to be struck by the magnitude of the stake
and the relatively limited sacrifice, in financial terms,
which would be needed to improve on the past trends in
the economic growth of the developing countries: only a
slight reduction in expenditure on armaments would
suffice to make available the external resources required
for solving at least some of the gravest economic and
social problems of today’s world.”
79. Implicit in all these is the imperative need for a more
decisive commitment to the purposes and principles of the
Charter on the part of all Members of the United Nations.
The problems of peace and development transcend national
and regional boundaries. They underline the inescapable
reality of our interdependent world.
80. Three years ago the President of the Philippines
reminded the General Assembly [1411th meeting] that the
unresolved threat of nuclear annihilation imposed a desperately
short deadline on United Nations efforts to ensure
mankind’s survival. Again this is underscored by Secretary-General
U Thant in the introduction to his annual report
[A/7601/Add.1] now before us.
81. On 9 May 1969, in his statement at the opening
session of the conference on the Second United Nations
Development Decade, the Secretary-General issued this
warning:
“I do not wish to seem overdramatic, but I can only
conclude from the information that... the United
Nations have perhaps ten years left in which to subordinate
their ancient quarrels and launch a global
partnership to curb the arms race, to improve the human
environment, to defuse the population explosion, and to
supply the required momentum to world development
efforts. If such a global partnership is not forged within
the next decade, then I very much fear that the problems
I have mentioned will have reached such staggering
proportions that they will be beyond our capacity to
control.”
82. With characteristic wit, the late John F. Kennedy
illuminated one aspect of the problem most pertinent to
the Second Development Decade. He said: “If a free society
cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few
who are rich“. Let us repeat that. “If a free society cannot
help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are
rich.”
83. If I have voiced some thoughts that are critical of this
Organization and some aspects of its work, it does not
mean that my delegation has lost faith in the United
Nations. On the contrary, we would like to enhance its
effectiveness because we believe in it.
84. The Philippine people are among the founding
Members of the United Nations. Our belief in the freedom
and dignity of man, our hopes for the future, and our
commitment to the kind of world in which those hopes
could find fulfilment are embodied in the purposes and
principles of the United Nations Charter, in the drafting of
which we had the privilege of having a hand.
85. Our support of the United Nations, through the
vicissitudes of its first two decades, has been firm and
unstinting. It will remain steadfast through whatever trials
and ordeals may lie ahead. Twenty years ago, when I had
the inestimable privilege of presiding over the General
Assembly, the cold war was at its height. In the aftermath
of the Berlin blockade, the danger of a third world war
appeared to be a very real one. Then the Korean War
exploded. I confess, I spent many a sleepless night thinking
of ways to help reduce tensions and develop modes of
accommodation between the contending sides.
86. But on the supreme question of man’s ability and will
to survive—and not only to survive, but to presevere in his
everlasting quest for the fullness of freedom and dignity—
my faith has never wavered; and that faith is as strong
today as it was twenty years ago.