Speech
of
His Excellency Fidel V. Ramos
President of the Philippines
At the closing of the 12th Board of Director’s meeting and International Media Forum of the Confederation of ASEAN Journalists

[Delivered at Malacañang, August 29, 1995]

One voice for
Southeast Asia

OF YOUR COUNTERPARTS in Hamlet’s Denmark—the wandering actors who came to perform at Elsinore—Shakespeare’s melancholy prince warned the king’s minister to treat them with the utmost courtesy because:

“. . .After your death you were better having a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live. . . .”

In the same spirit, I have asked my own staff to take every care with you—lest your reports when you get back home belie forever all our claims to Filipino hospitality.

I am pleased to tell you that now, in the middle of my six-year term, we have put our house in order—and restored our economy to the path of growth.

A working democracy

And we are developing as a working democracy—not as an arrogant example for other peoples to follow, but because history has so shaped our political culture that any other way would not so easily work for us.

In a word, we Filipinos are ready once again to play a more active role in regional cooperation—and to account for ourselves more significantly in the world.

In our security concerns, there is substantial convergence of views among ASEAN countries. The Philippines, like the others, believes that security has many dimensions: it involves not only the military but the economy, diplomacy and politics as well; and that economic growth and interdependence, in the context of the new world trading regime, by themselves promote regional stability.

Over these past two decades, we have seen how economic progress, together with human development, can make countries not only richer but safer.

We have seen how the force of arms—which had for so long arbitrated relationships between nations—can give way to the more benign regime of mutual benefit. In fact, for the richest and most settled portions of the globe—the democracies of Western Europe and the Americas—war has become outmoded as an instrument of competition.

You are the voices of ASEAN

But the vigorous growth and meshing together of our national economies enable us to hope that the time will soon come when all of Asia-Pacific, too, enters the zones of peace—when our regional stability will depend not so much anymore on arms and alliances as on peaceful commerce and integration in the Asia-Pacific community, particularly in Southeast Asia.

We in ASEAN today belong to a region with a combined population of 400 million people—spread over more than three million square kilometers of mainland, islands and water.

ASEAN therefore has great potential force—economically, politically and culturally—to speak as one strong voice in deciding the future of Southeast Asia.

That our countries should strengthen their linkages and pool their material and moral resources is crucial at this time, when the great powers are trying to shape—each to its own design the future of Asia-Pacific, including Southeast Asia.

We cannot remain passive spectators to this interplay of the great powers. We can—we must—be active players in deciding the future of our home region. And we can be active players—if not in economic and military might then in the collective power of ideas, of moral persuasion and of dynamic people power.

In the realm of ideas and moral reasoning, you—as our intellectuals and journalists—are the voices of ASEAN. You must make sure you speak as one voice when you speak of the needs, labors and aspirations of the peoples of ASEAN and Southeast Asia.

At every regional council—at every opportunity—you must always speak also for modernization, fair play and mutual respect.

And cohesive action begins with a recognition of the community of our strategic interests.

This early we can all take pride in the way ASEAN already is shaping the future of the Asia-Pacific.

As you know, ASEAN’s negotiating principles of consultation and consensus—of musjawarah and mufakat—have become the operating principles of both the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and the ASEAN Regional Forum.

Journalism on the threshold of a new century

In deciding to build political trust first—rather than coming to grips immediately with specific disputes—in working slowly, incrementally, informally—keeping in mind that the process of reaching an agreement is important in itself—both APEC and the ASEAN Regional Forum gain a flexibility and organizational strength absent from, say, the European Union.

Today, on the threshold of a new century and a new millennium, journalism in ASEAN has become an exciting profession because dramatic and significant changes-political, economy cultural-are taking place in the region

The recognition that our countries must hang together impelled Vietnam to join ASEAN only last month. We now expect Laos and Cambodia to join our grouping formally within two-three years. And recent events in Myanmar enable us to hope ASEAN can complete uniting the natural cluster of 10 Southeast Asian countries by the year 2000.

In your everyday work, you must not merely reflect the temper—and ferment—of our times. You must actively encourage our countries’ movement toward unity, because only a unified Southeast Asia can become a vital force for maintaining the stability and vigor of the region.

As ASEAN journalists, you are the transmitters—the broadcasters, the messengers—of these Southeast Asian virtues.

To my mind, you have three basic tasks, which your peoples expect you to carry out.

Your first task is to promote trust, friendship and cooperation among our peoples who are just rediscovering the roots they share—of blood, language, culture and aspiration.

Your second task is to help our leaders, diplomats, business-people, professionals and ordinary Southeast Asians cooperate in attaining peace, prosperity and social justice for our peoples and for the region.

Your third task is to relate the events, trends and developments in Southeast Asia to the mainstream of human experience; and the aspirations of Southeast Asia’s peoples to the larger hopes and visions of mankind.

Tolerance for differing truths

And your responsibility is great—because people have an implicit trust in the media—and you can readily help shape both national and regional events.

This responsibility you hold I cannot overstate—because I know the impact that the media in this country have on Government day after day.

It is well known that our political systems here in ASEAN differ widely in form—if not in substance. To me what matters most is that we develop some tolerance for differing truths and realities: that we all become less quick to measure other peoples by the political standards we set for ourselves. For 500 years Southeast Asia was a region that things were done to and done against. Now Southeast Asia is making its own history—and imprinting its deeds in the annals of mankind.

As the chroniclers of this regional history, you must work to ensure that it transcends the bloody struggles and bitterness of the past—and brings us to a time of enduring peace, sustained prosperity and social equity for all our peoples.