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INTERNATIONAL

Ile Philippine s' C hairm ans hip of ASEAN

Interview with His Excellency
Mr Evan V. Garcia

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative,
Permanent Mission of the Philippines to the United Nations Office and other inter-
national organizations in Geneva

Q: Your Excellency, the Philippines take place. And in this area, we co- panding trade and investment and
is Chair of ASEAN this year. What operate against transnational crime deepening the integration in these
are your priorities? and illegal drugs, against lawlessness. areas; secondly, positioning the MS-
There are numerous priorities that we The third priority is maritime coop- MEs in IT; and thirdly, finding a way
have in ASEAN, which spring from eration. The region is surrounded to make our economies more inno-
our experience as developing nations by seas, so it stands to reason that vation-driven. The fourth priority is
and as increasingly close neighbours. we would like to enhance stability resilience. As you know, my country
There are six main points. The first and friendliness among all the coun- and others in ASEAN have every
priority is on a people-oriented and tries in those basins. The third one is year been visited by all kinds of natu-
people-centred ASEAN. By that I because, as I said, we are all mostly ral disasters (floods, typhoons, etc.),
mean all those elements that contrib- developing countries and so our pri- and so we want to be able to improve
ute to making ASEAN a more caring ority is inclusive growth. From the what we call our "DRR" - Disas-
and more sharing and more unifying point of view of the Philippines, this ter Risk Reduction capabilities, our
community where we pay attention means promoting what we call "MS- ability to respond to emergencies
to human rights, to cultural heritage, MEs" or Micro, Small and Medium individually and collectively, and to
health care, migrant workers, so on Enterprises. These are not the giant address some of the causes, such as
and so forth. The second priority is corporations. These are the every- coming together on addressing the
peace and stability. We would like to day corporations that collectively negative consequences of climate
improve the security of our citizens, employ the largest percentage of the change. Promoting adaptability is
improve human security, which are populations in our countries. So, we another area, and working on those
the essential parts for allowing all would like inclusive-led growth to institutions in ASEAN that would
the other aspects of development to focus on certain things: First is ex- help us collectively attain these goals.

8 DIVA - INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMAT