I am pleased to report to you that the Philippines actively participated in the Southwest Pacific Dialogue (SWPD) which was held in Adelaide, Australia on 2-3 December, The SWPD groups together the Philippines, Australia, East Timor, Indonesia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea.  Except for Papua New Guinea, which sent its Minister for Internal Security, the SWPD members were represented by their foreign ministers--Alexander Downer (Australia), Jose Ramos-Horta (Timor Leste), Hassan Wirayuda (Indonesia), Phil Goff (New Zealand), and myself.

The agenda of the SWPD covers areas of key interest to the Philippines, such as maritime security, counter-terrorism cooperation, inter-faith dialogue, cooperation to combat transnational crimes, democratic reform and human rights advocacy in the sub-region.  The Dialogue provides an opportunity for the participants to exchange views on these matters in an informal setting and is an important link for the Philippines to another contiguous sub-region outside of South and North East Asia.  It was during this meeting that Foreign Minister Downer announced the Australian government’s emergency humanitarian assistance of Australian $ 500,000 for the victims of the typhoons and floods in the Philippines.

The main points covered in the Dialogue were as follows:
 

• There was great interest in the measures being undertaken by Indonesia and the Philippines in the area of terrorism and counter-terrorism.  I responded by citing the gains achieved by the Philippine government in reducing the political and operational space of terrorists; the likelihood of a peace agreement with the MILF; the substantial number of arrests of terrorists; and RP’s diplomatic triumph in APEC, where it was elected Chair of the APEC Counter-terrorism Task Force. Ambassador-at-Large for Counter-terrorism Benjamin Defensor was part of my delegation and he was able to dialogue with his Australian counterpart, Mr. Les Luck, as a result of which Australia offered to fund Philippine participants for training in the Jakarta Center for Law Enforcement Cooperation.

• Seeing the increasing dominance of security issues in the SWPD’s agenda, I suggested that the SWPD should go beyond discussions on counter-terrorism and begin to look at terrorism’s root causes in injustice, poverty, and underdevelopment, the breeding grounds of discord and discontent.

• The inter-faith dialogue hosted by Indonesia and Australia in Yogyakarta on 6-7 December 2004 was lauded, and I informed the participants that the Philippines was sending Secretary Ging Deles with a full delegation of religious leaders to actively participate. The Philippines’ initiative at the UN General Assembly, where all SWPD countries supported the unanimously-approved UN resolution on inter-religious dialogue, was also highlighted.

• The meeting adopted in its joint press statement my interventions on the importance of maritime security, border control, and environmental safety, particularly in the vital sea lanes and shipping routes found in the sub-region. As a grouping of contiguous island states and archipelagoes, the SWPD is an ideal political forum for projecting Philippine maritime interests in the sub-region. END

/jay