Philippines, 1996

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

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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

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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,

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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.