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JAKARTA—Malacañang is pressing the Senate to ratify the proposed charter of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations by November in an effort to dispel concerns that the country could become a stumbling block in providing the regional group a legal personality.
Full ratification of the ASEAN charter by all 10 member-nations will enable the ASEAN to evolve from what critics describe as “a mere talk shop” into an intergovernmental-organization that is based on rules and accountability.
Vidal E. Querol, Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia, said in an interview the Philippines had nothing against the ratification of the ASEAN charter.
Querol’s disclosure appears to be a turnaround from President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s statement to fellow ASEAN leaders in November 2007, when she said Congress would find “extreme difficulty in ratifying the charter” until military-ruled Myanmar (Burma) freed Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi, leader of the National League of Democracy party that won the national elections in 1990, has been under house arrest since 2003. She had been in a similar situation in 12 of the past 18 years.
So far, seven of the 10 ASEAN members have ratified the charter, the latest among them Myanmar. Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam had earlier ratified the document.
The two others who have yet to ratify the charter are Indonesia and Thailand, which like the Philippines, are original members of this group that marked its 41st anniversary yesterday.
Malaysia and Singapore make up the rest of the original five members.
“(Malacañang) forwarded the ASEAN charter to the Senate in June,” Querol said. “The Philippines has nothing against ratification.”
The ambassador added that all that was left now was to allow the Senate to go through its usual process of deliberation.
ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday it was just natural for the last three countries to take the longest time to ratify the charter “because their processes are the most participatory” among the 10 members.
“Some need only the agreement of their Cabinets while some need to go through their parliaments or Congress,” Surin said.
“Non-ratification so far does not mean non-acceptance of the charter. We should not look at that as a nuisance,” he added.
The ASEAN’s target for full ratification is by end of 2008 but Querol said Malacañang hoped the Senate would have made a decision by November, in time for the 14th ASEAN Summit to be held in Bangkok.
“ASEAN is being revitalized to turn this tapestry of hopes into a robust architecture that reflects our hopes for the region,” Surin said.
ASEAN has been criticized for its “ineffectiveness” in acting on pressing matters such as oppressive governments and disaster response, mainly attributed to the group’s basic principle of making decisions by consensus and non-interference on internal matters.
In the 12th summit held in Cebu in 2007, ASEAN leaders agreed to build the ASEAN Economic Community—integrating the 10 disparate economies into a single market—by 2015.
