Philippines, 2004

It gives me great

pleasure to congratulate you, Sir, as you ably and

wisely guide our deliberations at the fifty-ninth

session. Allow me also to take this opportunity to

express my delegation’s appreciation to Mr. Julian

Hunte of Saint Lucia for his successful stewardship of

the work of the fifty-eighth session.

The world has changed a great deal since our

hopes and aspirations were enshrined in the Charter

almost 60 years ago. What has not changed, but

remains unaltered, is our collective desire to build a

safe, tolerant and secure world, anchored in justice and

social progress.

What has not changed is the very spirit and

driving force that brought us together — we, the

peoples of the United Nations. Those opening words of

the Charter remind us that the United Nations is a

creation of the peoples of the world. Those words

compel us to recall that our Organization has been

entrusted by our peoples with the sacred task of

translating their aspirations into reality. They are words

that tell us that we are assembled today not only as

delegates of our Governments, but also as

representatives of our peoples. With those words, the

Charter freed the world from the notion that only States

matter. With those words, the people were placed at the

heart of our United Nations.

Today, the technologies and discoveries that make

the world smaller and should bring us together are

being used to tear us apart. Today, new forms of

political, economic and social division directly threaten

our people and the values and dreams they hold dear.

These threats have the potential to overwhelm the

gains of our Organization and to divide our peoples.

All these factors have given rise to clamour for

decisive reform in the United Nations. We should start

with the basic reform of the structures and

relationships that define powers and responsibilities.

For our Organization, this means pursuing earnest

reforms in the Security Council; the General Assembly

and its subsidiary bodies; and the Secretariat. But

addressing the most basic elements is also the most

difficult thing to do.

Any planned reform of the United Nations should

be endorsed by consensus by all 191 Member States.

Any reform of the Security Council should give due

consideration to the views of the five permanent

members, as they will have the final say in the matter.

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Any reform should also recognize that a country like

Japan deserves to be considered for a seat as a

permanent member.

We must all put our creative energies to work,

spare no effort and ignore no avenue or opportunity in

bringing greater peace and progress to our peoples.

Religion and religious leaders have a role to play in

fostering tolerance and greater understanding among

peoples. They bring unique perspectives to the

promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Inter-faith dialogue between the peoples of

different civilizations should also be encouraged. Deep

and historic divisions can be healed through a dialogue

between peoples of different faiths and civilizations.

The Philippines will work with like-minded

delegations in support of efforts to broaden such a

dialogue.

Our peoples’ differences, whether of belief or of

culture, should not be a basis for misunderstanding or

conflict. But most of all, reform must begin by placing

the welfare and interests of the peoples of the world at

the forefront our deliberations.

In the 15 minutes that it will take me to deliver

my remarks, 60 people will have died of tuberculosis.

By the time the curtain falls on a Broadway show, 250

persons, mostly women and children, will have been

trafficked into forced servitude or prostitution. By the

time we wake up tomorrow morning, 3,000 children

will have died of malaria and a further 6,000 children

will have perished for lack of clean water.

Instead of having school books in their hands,

over 300,000 children in conflict areas have their

fingers on the triggers of automatic rifles.

HIV/AIDS kills 3 million people a year; millions

of refugees crowd camps. One fifth of the world’s

population still live in abject poverty, barely subsisting

on less than the price of the newspaper sold around the

corner from our hotels.

Terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass

destruction and the massive proliferation of small arms

directly threaten the people and their livelihood and

represent an assault on their dignity.

Critical flashpoints, most of which are in my part

of the world, have the potential for armed conflict that

would certainly place people and their futures at grave

risk.

As a founding Member of the United Nations and

as a current member of the Security Council, the

Philippines places its faith in the Organization for the

maintenance of international peace and security, the

promotion of social progress and better standards of

life and the protection of the fundamental rights of

individuals.

People antedate the evolution of statehood. As we

place people at the centre of the United Nations, I

would like to highlight the need to protect their lives

and the importance of ensuring their livelihood and

promoting their dignity.

We must allow our peoples to live free from fear,

to live in a safe and secure world. Terrorism poses a

serious threat not only to the lives of our people, but

also to the values and ideals that define our societies.

Terrorism reduces people to mere pawns in a ruthless

game of competing beliefs and ideologies.

The rubble in Jakarta has been cleared. Flowers

cover the little graves in Beslan. But the enemies of all

peoples are still lurking in the shadows, conspiring and

plotting, with evil in their hearts and the blood of

innocents on their hands.

The Philippines condemns all forms of terrorism.

No cause or dogma can ever justify its use. Long

before 11 September 2001, the Philippines and its

people suffered from the scourge of terrorism. We have

seen the face of terror and felt its deadly touch. We

were among the first in our region to join the

international war against terror. The Philippines

believes that conflicts should be addressed before

terrorism can begin to define or exploit them. This can

be done by working together with other nations.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo believes that

a new kind of peace has to be developed for a new kind

of war, waged by terrorists. She proposes a new global

alliance to alleviate poverty and remove it as a

breeding ground for resentment and conflict.

With the help of the Organization of the Islamic

Conference, violent secessionism has given way to

peaceful autonomy in southern Philippines. The

potential for terrorism to breed has been drastically

reduced. In partnership with Malaysia, we are closer to

a negotiated peace with the remaining secessionists,

who themselves have renounced terror. With Norway

as a facilitator, prospects remain for peace talks with

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one of the world’s few remaining communist rebel

groups.

Another important dimension of human security

is economic. At the national level, economic security

means primarily providing livelihood for the people. In

the Philippines, President Arroyo has enshrined that

goal in her 10-point programme of action for 2004 to

2010. The programme calls for the creation of

6 million jobs in six years by giving more opportunities

to entrepreneurs, tripling the amount of loans to small

and medium-size enterprises and developing 1 million

to 2 million hectares of land for agribusiness.

If we are to maintain economic security, the

international community should also make job creation

a priority goal in international economic cooperation.

The General Assembly should look more closely at

innovative tools that will help spur economic growth,

particularly in developing countries. Greater attention

should be focused on how micro-credit or

microfinance — an area where the Philippines has

made significant strides — could serve as an

instrument to alleviate the conditions of the poorest of

the poor.

Creative ways to solve the lingering debt issue

and the spiralling cost of energy should also be

considered. We need to ease the burden of debt

servicing and to channel those meagre resources to

where they are needed most. Each day, developing

countries pay the rich nations $717 million in debt

service. Every baby born in the developing world

already owes $482 at birth. Every year, sub-Saharan

Africa pays $10 billion in debt service — four times as

much money as the countries in the region spend on

health care and education. The wise mobilization of

domestic resources, such as remittances for

development, should also be carefully studied.

Remittances by migrants — much greater than the total

amount of overseas development assistance —

alleviate the poverty of the family members remaining

in their country of origin.

Economic security prospers when the playing

field is level for both developed and developing

countries. Levelling the economic playing field ensures

that the fruits of globalization will benefit the people in

terms of better opportunities, more jobs and improved

livelihood. International trade, investment and

development are crucial tools in raising the people’s

standard of living. But the people of poor countries

continue to face persistent barriers to their products

from the developing world. Those barriers exist despite

the strictures of the international trading system,

emphasizing the need for an open, rule-based

multilateral trading system.

Economic crises in developing countries result in

immediate threats to human security. When people do

not know where their next meal will come from or

when their crops will fail, human security is

compromised. In an interlinked global economy, crises

spread rapidly. The prevention and mitigation of such

crises in developing countries also enhances human

security in developed countries. A World Bank study

shows, for instance, that the total elimination of

agricultural subsidies in rich countries would increase

rural income in low- and medium-income countries by

about $60 billion a year.

Needless to say, international trade policy needs

to be fair, not only to farmers of the developed world,

but also to their counterparts in the developing

countries. As a start, a substantial reduction in

agricultural subsidies for farmers in rich countries

would go a long way towards helping their fellow

agricultural workers beyond their borders. There is also

a need for developed countries to implement their

commitments to allocate 0.7 per cent of their gross

national product for official development assistance.

Again, official development assistance is an instrument

to help people help themselves — a social

responsibility that is more pronounced now, in an era

of increasing globalization. The inexorable pace of

globalization fuels new phenomena and creates new

challenges to human security. The fluidity of capital,

technology, culture and even people should be

acknowledged as inherent to globalization and should

be harnessed for the good of the people.

Democracy and freedom — central elements to

ensuring the rights and dignity of the people — should

be encouraged and promoted, particularly in countries

that are in transition or recovering from conflict. It is

in that spirit that the Philippines supports the call for

the establishment of a democracy fund. The Philippines

is prepared to provide technical support and training in

the areas of governance, the administration of justice,

electoral processes and similar subjects, with

third-party support. We will share our knowledge — a

result of our own experience as Asia’s first

democracy — since we have had to struggle to regain

and preserve that very same democracy.

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The world should continue to support the people

of Iraq in their valiant effort to create a democratic,

free, pluralistic and secure nation. The Philippines

stands ready to assist in implementing Security Council

resolution 1546 (2004) on Iraq, which was

unanimously adopted during our presidency of the

Council last June. The United Nations has a significant

role to play in Iraq in the political process leading to

the elections scheduled for January next year, and it

deserves the full support of the international

community in its efforts to build a stable and peaceful

Iraq.

Conflict has devastating effects on the safety and

security of people. The deliberate targeting of innocent

civilians as victims is increasingly being used as a

weapon of war and as a tool of terrorists. The

movement of people across borders reinforces the

interdependence of countries, facilitates the transfer of

skills and knowledge and stimulates economic growth

and development. In order to protect the security of

migrants, we must give them the legal status that will

enable them to gain access to basic services and will

ensure the protection of fundamental rights. The

International Convention on the Protection of the

Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their

Families entered into force on 1 July 2003. We take

this opportunity to call on all our friends to make every

effort to accede to the Convention.

The interdependence and interlinkages among the

peoples of the world require that human security

should top the agendas of local, national, regional and

global governance. Human security addresses the

challenges of the twenty-first century, responds to our

peoples’ aspirations as enshrined in our Charter and

reinvigorates the United Nations in the process.

Finally, in a world where people are sometimes

reduced to images on a screen and their suffering

distilled into pixels and fonts, perhaps we should again

be reminded that, when we gave life to the United

Nations almost 60 years ago, we ushered in a new era

in the human saga, embarking on our historic journey

with the words: “We the peoples of the United

Nations ...”.