22 November 2004 – Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo today said that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would be attending the ASEAN Leaders Summit in Vientiane on 29-30 November where she will be presenting the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Plan of Action to implement the ASEAN decision to establish an ASEAN Community by 2020.

The theme of this year’s Summit is “Advancing a Secure and Dynamic ASEAN Family through Greater Solidarity, Economic Integration and Social Progress”. The President will lead the Philippine delegation composed of officials from the Office of the President, DFA and DTI.

“During the Summit, ASEAN Leaders will be adopting the Plans of Action for the ASEAN Security Community (ASC), the Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) and the Vientiane Action Program (VAP),” Secretary Romulo said. “These Plans of Action implement the landmark decision by the ASEAN Leaders at the 9th ASEAN Summit in Bali in October 2003 to adopt the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II, otherwise known as the Bali Concord II.  The Bali Concord declared that an ASEAN Community shall be established comprising three pillars, namely political and security cooperation, economic cooperation, and socio-cultural cooperation that are closely intertwined and mutually reinforcing for the purpose of regional peace and prosperity.”

Secretary Romulo explained that the Philippine initiative, the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Plan of Action, covers program areas and measures in bridging development gaps within ASEAN countries for the next sixteen years or until 2020.

“The Plan of Action has for its strategic thrusts, poverty alleviation, human development, environmental sustainability and promotion of a regional identity. These measures will be translated into concrete projects in the Vientiane Action Program (VAP), the medium term work program of ASEAN until 2010,” the Secretary said.

The ASEAN Leaders will also have Summit Meetings with their Northeast Asia neighbors and Dialogue Partners China, Republic of Korea and Japan. The other Summit Meetings will be with India, Australia and New Zealand.

“ASEAN is deepening partnerships with its Dialogue Partners as an integral part of the outward looking ASEAN Community. China, Japan and ROK and India are active partners in ASEAN’s strive for regional integration. ASEAN relations with these countries have enjoyed rapid and comprehensive development and ASEAN has agreed to adopt Joint Plans of Actions and Joint Declarations to further boost these strategic relations.  Australia and New Zealand have had 30 years of dialogue partnership with ASEAN,” Secretary Romulo pointed out. “Their long tradition of support for human resource development and local capacity building in ASEAN have contributed to deepening regional integration and narrowing of development gaps within the region.”

“For the Philippines, participation in ASEAN contributes in achieving the President’s 10-point agenda.  An ASEAN Community characterized by free flow of goods, services, investments and skilled labor, and freer flow of capital would result to more job creation for our workers, opportunities for our SMEs, more exports for our agricultural produce and tourism,” Secretary Romulo said.

The Secretary stressed that more and more, Philippine foreign policy decisions have to be made in the context of ASEAN.  He said that Philippine initiatives in counter terrorism and in addressing transnational crimes are being coordinated with ASEAN in cooperation with Dialogue partners, both through the dialogue frameworks and under ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) process.

“Recognizing that the private sector is the engine of ASEAN’s unprecedented growth, President Arroyo has accepted the invitation by the ASEAN Business and Advisory Council to give a keynote address before the 2nd ASEAN Business and Investment Summit on 28 November on the topic ‘The Future of Expanded ASEAN Economic Integration’,” Secretary Romulo added.  “At last year’s First ASEAN–BIS Summit in Bali, the President also delivered a speech on the topic:  Intra ASEAN Growth Areas. She will be joined by the Leaders of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, China, ROK and India who will also give speeches on various topics.”

The highest decision- making organ of ASEAN, the ASEAN Summit is an annual meeting of the ASEAN Heads of State/Government, which is held in the capital of the current Chairman of the ASEAN Standing Committee.  The Summit discusses international and regional political and economic issues of relevance to ASEAN, reviews status of relations with Dialogue Partners and formulates decisions and policy directions to enhance ASEAN regional cooperation.  Important regional agreements on various areas of cooperation are usually signed by the ASEAN Leaders during the Summit.

Laos, the current Chair of the ASEAN Standing Committee, will host the 10th ASEAN Summit and other related meetings in Vientiane, from 29-30 November 2004. Heads of States from the 10 ASEAN member countries will attend the ASEAN Summit. END