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[av_heading heading=’MORE VITAL THAN EVER ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY EDGARDO J. ANGARA
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ASEAN at 50
THE ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) has evolved slowly but surely into one of the most dynamic regional blocs in its five decades of existence.
Some even consider ASEAN the most successful supranational grouping in the world today. It comprises of 10 countries with a population of 650 million, the world’s third-largest labor-force, and an economy poised to become the world’s fifth-largest by 2020.
When the five founding members — Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — signed the Bangkok Declaration in 1967, their avowed objective was to ward off the threat of foreign interference looming heavily over the region during the Cold War. Said a recent South China Morning Post article, this act changed the region “from a battlefield into a marketplace.”
As Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam became members through the years, ASEAN helped maintain peace and stability. That enabled the region to grow into an attractive investment destination through a process that reached a milestone with the formal integration of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) at the end of 2015.
The ongoing maritime disputes, intensified by China’s island-building activities and militarization of the South China Sea, pose among the most disturbing and disruptive challenges to ASEAN’s development in the coming years. Not all members are party to the disputes, but ASEAN’s core emphasis on consensus-building and cooperation makes it difficult for the bloc to take a decisive stance, beyond calling for a toothless Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
Several pundits argue such a decision-making process is a weakness in ASEAN. But as Edith Terry, an adjunct professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, recently tried to explain, such a “lowest-common-denominator approach” is in fact why the ASEAN “holds up well amid disappointment with the Bretton Woods institutions.”
In the South China Morning Post, Terry declared: “ASEAN will never face a Brexit. Its fundamental promise to its members is that it does not challenge their sovereignty. Its Jakarta-based secretariat is the opposite of the bureaucratic Babylons of the European Union, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, or the UN and its many offshoots. It has a staff of 300, compared to 100 times that in EU headquarters in Brussels.”
Terry highlighted the fact that unlike the World Bank, IMF, or the UN, ASEAN does not have an equity structure that gives richer members more say, but instead calibrates its dues to the paying capacity of its poorest members. By giving even the most hard-up members an equal say, ASEAN is able to fully leverage its economic, cultural, and political diversity.
The flip side of the above argument is that the requirement for unanimity among the 10 member-countries opens a ready window of opportunity for interference by big outside powers. Exactly nullifying the non-interference objective of the ASEAN Charter. ASEAN will try to achieve a level of economic and political integration probably similar to that of the European Union. But that’s not necessarily the ideal. By charting a path different from the EU yet acceptable to all of its members, its longevity and relevance appear to be sustainable. (angara.ed@gmail.com| Facebook & Twitter: @edangara)/PN
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[av_heading heading=’Durogista gintiro sang Pulis’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
Ni Ime Sornito
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Syudad sang ILOILO – Patay ang isa sa duha ka high-value targets sa pagduso sang ilegal nga droga kag subjects sa warrant of arrest para sa kaso nga two counts of murder sa operasyon sang Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 6 sa Barangay Ticud, La Paz alas-3:34 sang hapon kahapon. Gindeklarar nga dead-on-arrival sa West Visayas Medical Center si Aslani Ansari alyas Boy nga nakaagom sang pilas sa lawas. Na-aresto naman ang upod sini nga si Alex Mapandi alyas Angari/Agie, 31. Sandig sa report halin kay Senior Supt. Marlon Tayaba, hepe sang CIDG-6, upod ang mga katapo sang Special Weapons And Tactics kag Iloilo City Police Office, plano nila nga i-serbe ang warrant of arrest para sa kaso nga two counts of murder kontra sa duha sang nagluntad ang insidente. Ginapasuni nga nagbatu si Ansari paagi sa pagtiro sa isa sa mga katapo sang CIDG-6 rason nga na-puersa ang mga otoridad nga magbalos kabangdanan sang iya kamatayon. Narekober naman sa paghinakop sang duha ang duha ka mga pusil kag pila ka plastic sachets sang ginapatihan shabu. Sa interbyu naman sang mga katapo sang media kay Senior Insp. Rey Sumagaysay, hepe sang La Paz PNP, sanday Ansari kag Mapandi ang ginatudlo mga suspek sa pagpatay paagi sa pagsunog sa isa ka Muslim nga nasapwan nga naputos sa plastic sa circumferential road sa Brgy. Balabago, Jaro sang tinalikdan nga bulan./H
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