Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the Asia-Pacific Forum on ASEAN Internal and External Cooperation in the 1990s and Beyond

Released on January 13, 1993]

The enduring bond
of ASEAN

Last year we marked the first quarter century of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. If the lives of institutions could be reckoned in the same way as the life of man, then the year 1993 represents the second generation of our ASEAN community.

In our time, we are living through the momentous experience of seeing history dramatically change before us. This experience is the disintegration of one pattern of order in the world and the establishment of new political realities and relationships suggesting the beginnings of a new order.

The impact of changes

Among such changes were the fall of Rome in the fifth century, the French and American revolutions in the eighteenth century, the rise of empire in the nineteenth century and then the collapse of empire at the end of the Second World War resulting in the rise of new nations.

We must also reckon the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War at the close of the eighties.

Analyzing the impact of such changes—the challenges and opportunities they bring—is the province of experts such as you who are gathered at this forum today. We who are tasked to lead governments and nations must turn to you for insight and guidance so that we may act appropriately in confronting challenges and seizing opportunities before us.

This is the importance that I attach to this forum on “ASEAN Internal and External Cooperation in the 1990s and Beyond.” How do changes in our time impact on our quest for greater community and solidarity within our region? How can we best harmonize our actions as individual nations to secure the collective stability of our region and the welfare of our respective societies? And how do we face up to the inevitable problems that come up with the passing of the old order and the emergence of a new one?

ASEAN approaches to challenges

These questions are foremost today in the concerns of ASEAN governments. By way of opening your meeting, let me venture here a report on how the Philippine and other ASEAN governments are approaching this challenge, as gleaned from the series of conferences and consultations that have taken place in recent months, many of them here in Manila.

To begin with, we see this present period in history as especially opportune for ASEAN. This is a tremendous time for building on the record and advancing the goals of our regional community.

Let me say it at once lest we forget it: there is nothing to be ashamed of in the record of ASEAN since its founding in Bangkok 25 years ago. In our quest for regional peace and stability, ASEAN has fully proved a stabilizing influence—both in promoting peace within the region and in moderating big-power competition on our turf. This is highlighted by hopeful developments in Cambodia and the recent accession of the governments of Vietnam and Laos to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, signed in Bali in 1976.

Moreover, there is nothing to apologize for in the economic performance of ASEAN. Today, our region is recognized as a powerhouse of industry, technology and entrepreneurial ability in the Pacific Basin.

Even so, a new chapter has opened for our region. The business of building our ASEAN community must move forward. Both opportunity and challenge impel us to speed up plans and projects for cooperation.

In this spirit, the representatives of our governments have been meeting of late in Manila and other ASEAN capitals. Last July, the ASEAN foreign ministers met here for their 25th ministerial meeting. Within the last four months our economic ministers, labor ministers and tourism ministers held formal consultations and discussions here. Just very recently ASEAN’s foreign ministers also convened in the Philippines to discuss mutual concerns with their European Community counterparts.

The frequency of these meetings and the high importance we all attach to them reflect our way of responding to the changes taking place in Asia and the world. We strive to convert change into opportunity, and opportunity into concrete benefits, for our countries and our region.

A turning point for ASEAN

I believe we can turn this final decade of the twentieth century into a turning point for our ASEAN community.

In the measure that we define and accelerate the process of full-fledged economic cooperation within our region, so shall we reap benefits that will redound to regional stability and welfare for all our peoples and our countries.

A new phase of ASEAN cooperation has become both urgent and imperative. Trends in the world economy impact on how far and how fast we can advance our countries and our region forward in this century and beyond.

Nor can we ignore the changes that technology is thrusting upon the world. The advent of electronic interchange has raised a quantum leap in the efficiency of long-distance trade among nations.

And so amid all these changes, how should we in ASEAN respond?

Clearly, we cannot stand still. We, too, must strive to improve upon our instruments and policies for economic cooperation, so that we will not only maintain our position in the world, but enhance it. We must build up our competitive edge and bargaining position.

Meeting the challenge of economic competition

How then should we meet this challenge?

First, ASEAN must build a stronger base for interdependence. If we don’t convert into interdependence the chain of cooperation that has brought our economies together, then our countries, individually, will have difficulties standing up to the complexities and intense competitiveness of the world economy.

Second, ASEAN must continually enhance its attractiveness for foreign investment. We must maintain the flow of foreign capital.

Third, ASEAN must continue building up its industrial infrastructures. ASEAN has a large and diverse range of mineral, agricultural and other raw materials on which sturdy industrial infrastructure can be built. This in turn will encourage the growth of processing industries.

Fourth, ASEAN must nurture intermediate and supporting industries to convert processed primary products. These industries can service regional and international networks of industries.

Fifth, ASEAN must develop service industries—particularly finance, communications and information.

Finally, ASEAN must invest more intensively in developing its human resources. Member nations can help one another by sharing more of their manpower pools.

While the West experienced a general slowdown of growth and even bleak economic prospects in the past few years, ASEAN has been able to sustain a dynamic economic growth. Economic forecasters have predicted that this growth will continue to be robust during 1993 at least. Beyond that, however, they forecast that the other regions will regain their competitive edge.

If we are to sustain this pace of development and our relative advantage, we must progressively broaden our level of cooperation within ASEAN. This task requires institutional changes cutting across national borders. We need to anticipate changes on a broad range of factors and issues.

Economic aspects of ASEAN cooperation

This is why we need more intensive and sincere efforts in furthering cooperation, particularly in reducing barriers to trade, in encouraging technology transfer, and in devising a rational human-resource development program responsive to the needs of industrialization and agricultural modernization.

This is why the plan for an ASEAN Free Trade Area, or AFTA, looms larger in regional horizons in the nineties and beyond.

In emphasizing the economic aspects of ASEAN cooperation, we do not neglect the importance of political and security cooperation, which has characterized ASEAN achievements during its first quarter century.

To underline some emerging trends: first, we have moved a long way in reducing conflict and tension; second, future international relations are likely to be dominated by the competition for economic growth and trade.

The competition for markets, technology and investments could generate international tensions as well. Yet these are less likely at this time to result in conflict. I for one see a time when competition will be characterized more by pragmatism and compromise than ideology.

Nevertheless, a number of security issues in the region require attention. These include endemic tensions such as territorial disputes, insurgency and separatist movements within member states.

One possible flash point comes from the islands forming the Spratly Archipelago, to which several countries have laid claim and which has provoked a mini-arms race of sorts. Fortunately, strategic imperatives work the opposite way. For one, internationally recognized and guaranteed sea lanes cut across the area, making it everyone’s interest that no single power should exercise hegemony over the Spratlys. For another, it is in the interest of the almost 350 million people bordering the South China basin that the area should remain free of conflict, so that all may share in its resources.

Other potential flash points

As for the other potential sources of instability—the uncertainties still remaining in Cambodia, the generational successions in some countries, the efforts of unification in the Korean Peninsula, and the buildup of defenses in many countries—all of these we include in our concerns. And we must work diligently to direct them toward avenues of cooperation instead of conflict.

On the whole, however, the compelling message of the times is toward greater peace and stability. The democratization of world politics and the new attention focused on economic development are sufficiently pronounced to cool the security concerns and temperatures in our region. The Philippine Government will soon host an international workshop on this problem.

We in ASEAN have been wise to welcome democratic participation in every aspect of national life, recognizing that the genuine political and economic empowerment of our people is the bedrock of national stability and the bedrock of nations–and therefore regional stability.

It remains for us to ensure that the New World Order does not result in a resurgence of narrow nationalisms, that many small conflicts do not replace the single big one that once threatened us.

Regional balance of power

For the region, our obvious and wisest recourse is to try and arrange among ourselves an internal balance of political and economic power sufficient to ensure our collective stability and peace.

We look back and we are thankful for what we have managed to build amid the many conflicts and tensions that had tormented the world in recent decades.

We look forward and from where we are, we can see how much more we can achieve for our societies and our region—if we hold together and work together.

In these challenges that I have outlined, we in the Philippines are fully prepared to do our part—by bringing to an end the internal conflicts that have been a millstone on our development and made our country a source of concern to the region, by putting our economic house in order and by honoring the commitments we have made to our neighbors and to ASEAN.

In much of the region, insurgency and rebellion have been wrestled to the ground. And here in the Philippines, unprecedented political stability has been achieved by my Government’s policy of reaching out. We are well on the way to winding down insurgency and separatism as impediments to our peace and progress. And it’s significant that we’re moving on a course that’s most salutary for the future—and that is a peaceful and just settlement with all the groups that have taken up arms against the Government.

In short, we Filipinos will not be a charge, will not be a liability on the ASEAN community. We intend to account for ourselves, to support our own weight and to contribute our just share to peace and security in the region, considering our strategic geographic position in Asia and the Pacific.

The crux of development

Similarly, we view ASEAN economic cooperation and dynamism as crucial to our own development. Development is something we can all win together.

We are confident that during the term of my Administration we will bring our country in pace with the development of the rest of ASEAN.

Under our Medium-term Philippine Development Plan, the general targets from 1993 to 1998 are to reduce mass poverty and income inequality, generate needed industrial jobs and expand investments in education, health care and skills-training for our people. The targets of the plan are clear: 10 percent GNP growth by 1988, per-capita income of at least US$1,000 and poverty incidence down to 30 percent of our population.

We have veered away from the inward and insular economic policies of the past by liberalizing our economy and opening it to foreign investments and trade. We now have a new Investments Code that cuts down cumbersome bureaucratic restrictions. We have also removed controls on foreign-exchange transactions.

Consistent with our international commitments, including AFTA, we are moving toward the reduction of tariffs and qualitative restrictions on most imports.

In anticipation of increased investments inflow, we have allocated a large part of our budget toward the development of physical, institutional and support infrastructures, including a full-scale energy development program.

Finally, we are investing heavily in our people—through education, health and other services. To respond to the anticipated needs of industrialization, we have adopted a manpower development plan designed along national and regional development imperatives.

These are not remarkable targets in the context of ASEAN’s impressive economic performance. But in the light of Philippine decline over the past two decades, they are achievable guideposts to the future.

When we look at our region today, it is true that there are some things in which our countries are different. Yet there is so much that we share in common. The most enduring bond we share is the ardent aspiration of our peoples for development.

Unity in ethnicity, culture and aspiration

Over the past quarter century, ASEAN has gathered us together in common action to speed up the economic growth, the political stability and the cultural development of our region in a spirit of equality and friendship. In so doing, ASEAN has confirmed Southeast Asia’s ancient sense of unity in ethnicity, culture and aspiration.

Now we must move on in our historic journey together to attain the fullness of freedom, peace and prosperity for ourselves and our posterity.

Writing on the history of the world back in the seventies, the British historian J.M. Roberts declared: “The balance-sheet of cultural influence is overwhelmingly one-sided. The world gave back to Europe occasional fashions, but no ideas or institutions of comparable effect to those Europe gave to the world. For centuries, thousands of European ships sailed to Calicut, Nagasaki and Canton. During the same centuries, not one Indian, Japanese or Chinese ship ever docked in Tilbury, Genoa or Amsterdam.”

Today, the course of history may be shifting. Another British analyst, Robert Lloyd George, wrote: “For the past two centuries, the insistent pressure, in terms of trade, technology and ideas, has been from West to East. In the 21st century, the tide will be reversed. The pressure and expansion will come from the East. It will most likely be a peaceful pressure, but it is certain that the economic dynamism of Asia will increasingly spill out, in a myriad of ways, over the Occidental world.”

No mere spectators

Japan, Korea and China stand at the forefront of this historic tide of change. But we in Southeast Asia are in every way part of the tide. We are no mere spectators, because the ASEAN community is now a major contributor to and participant in the world economy.

It is analysts and experts like you in this forum who open the minds of men to such possibilities. It is the leaders of nations who, by an act of will, turn men and societies to the realization of those potentialities.

If by an act of will, we can surmount the tactical quibbles and parochial worries that so far have prevented ASEAN from realizing its full potential, we can turn a comer in the balance of this century and be in a position of strength to welcome and enter the twenty-first century.