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Chapter 18
HARNESSING
GOOD GOVERNANCE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL COLLECTIVE ACTION
The Macapagal-Arroyo Administration is committed to help tackle issues requiring international collective action. It recognizes that many of the pressing development challenges cannot be solved without international or regional cooperation. These include areas such as poverty reduction, promotion of responsible parenthood, environmental protection, human rights violations, gender discrimination, AIDS prevention, global warming, global terrorism, illegal narcotics trade, trafficking of women and children, money laundering, and other transnational crimes.
Pursuit of democratic processes and adherence to market will be the guiding principles of the Administration’s domestic and foreign policies.
ASSESSMENT AND CHALLENGES
The International Context
Today the Philippines faces several realities that characterize its international and regional environment to which it has to respond in order to achieve our goals.
The first reality is that China, Japan and the United States and their relationships will be the determining influence in the security situation—and economic evolution—of East Asia.
Second, more and more, Philippine foreign policy decisions have to be made in the context of ASEAN.
Third, the international Islamic community and European countries will continue to be important for the Philippines.
Fourth, the coming years will see the growing importance of multilateral and inter-regional organizations to promote common interests.
Fifth, the defense of the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the protection of its environment and natural resources can be carried out only to the extent that the Philippines asserts its rights over maritime territory—and gets others to respect those rights.
Sixth, the country’s economic growth will continue to be heavily dependent on direct foreign investment.
Seventh, a country like the Philippines can benefit most quickly from international tourism.
And eighth, overseas Filipinos will continue to play a critical role in the country’s economic and social stability.
TARGETS AND STRATEGIES
Japan, China and the US
In pursuit of regional peace and security, the Philippines shall strengthen bilateral relations and security cooperation with major allies and entities in the Asia-Pacific region, which include China, Japan, and the United States.
China and Japan have emerged as the most powerful nations in the region. In this light, each is trying to manage the relationship with the other with utmost delicacy. Therefore, the Philippines, with the rest of Asia, has a stake in ensuring that the China-Japan relationship exerts a beneficial influence on the region’s economic and political stability.
With Japan, the Philippines should move to strengthen bilateral economic and political relations. With China, the Philippines desires a healthy, comprehensive, long-term relationship that transcends the specific matters at issue between us.
By virtue of its dominant military and economic power, the US will continue to be an important factor in the affairs of the region and the nation. The Philippines has had enduring historical, cultural and economic ties with the US. The last century saw in particular the close partnership between the Philippines and the US, which was redefined with the closure of the military bases in 1992.
The Philippines would enhance strategic RP-US relations in a way that is responsive to the new realities of globalization and the conjunction of democracy and the market. Despite the domestic problems that it sometimes causes, military alliance and security cooperation with the US is a strategic asset for the Philippines.
ASEAN
The commitment to ASEAN remains a cornerstone of Philippine foreign policy. The government will do its utmost to help build a community of peace in ASEAN.
The Philippines will remain firm in implementing its commitments in ASEAN as a strategy to achieve global competitiveness towards attaining sustainable growth and development. Specifically, the country remains committed to fully implement the ASEAN Free Trade Area-Comprehensive Effective Preferential Tariff (AFTA-CEPT) Agreement without prejudice to sensitive agricultural products and other products needing time to adjust to a competitive environment. The Philippines is strong in its resolve to help realize the e-ASEAN initiative.
The Philippines will continue to attach great value to the ASEAN Regional Forum or ARF as the only multilateral security forum in the Asia-Pacific region where ASEAN can engage regional and international players on political and security issues.
The Islamic Community
The Islamic community of nations is extremely important in the search for lasting peace and broad-based development in the Southern Philippines. The government hopes to form stronger bilateral relationships with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, Libya, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey, as well as the OIC Secretariat. In this endeavor, relations must be broadened beyond overseas worker-related issues.
Europe
The Philippines has strong historical, cultural and economic ties with European countries and recognizes the importance of the European Union as representing a major economic and political bloc. For this reason, the Philippines will continue to promote ties with traditional partners, such as Spain, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Italy, while seeking to reinforce ties with new European partners.
The Americas
The Philippines will promote relations with Latin America, a dynamic market of some 400 million consumers. It welcomes the opportunity to host the senior officials and ministerial meetings of the Forum of East Asian-Latin American Cooperation (FEALAC) in 2003.
Multilateral and Interregional Cooperation
The Philippines shall pursue peaceful and friendly coexistence and mutual benefit with other nations.
The Philippines is committed to promote multilateral and interregional cooperation, specifically among the 13 East Asian countries through ASEAN+3 in the economic and financial fields; in the Asia-Pacific region through the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation or APEC, particularly in human resources development, capital markets development, good governance, infrastructure development, education, and social development; and between Asia and Europe through the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), with the Philippines taking the lead in economic cooperation and child welfare.
The Philippines will also continue to participate actively in setting the global political, economic and social agenda with the United Nations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international organizations.
The Philippines will honor its international commitments made at the Rio Summit on Sustainable Development, the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the Social Development Summit in Copenhagen, the Beijing World Conference on Women, and in the WTO on rules-based multilateral trade, among others.
The National Territory
The peaceful resolution of territorial disputes will be intensified. For instance, the government will be pushing for the resolution of the Spratlys and Sabah issues in a manner that will promote the best interests of the region. The countries involved in this concern are increasingly becoming interdependent. It is a matter that represents not just the claims of individual countries, but claims to common aspirations of security, peace and survival in Southeast Asia.
The government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, will promote Philippine interests by working closely with the country’s immediate neighbors, broadening and deepening bilateral relations through such means as exchanges of visits, regular consultations and dialogues, and participation in regional and international fora and activities. An important priority is to secure agreements on maritime boundaries.
Investment
In an increasingly integrated global economy, foreign capital, technology, and markets will become important to the development of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. Clearly investment promotion and technology transfer are important components of our economic diplomacy.
Hence, the government shall support a more open, freer, and fairer global trade and investment regime, reaffirming our commitment to the AFTA-CEPT, APEC, WTO, and deepen ASEAN ties with the European Union.
Tourism
The tourism industry, which is a labor-intensive, broad-based, geographically diffuse sector that reaps quick returns, would be near the top of the country’s development priorities. In order to achieve this, the Administration will modify visa and aviation policies to suit the demands of the tourism industry. The government will also encourage and actively seek foreign investment in tourism facilities.
Overseas Filipinos
The Philippine economy will, for the foreseeable future, continue to be heavily dependent on remittances from overseas contract workers. On the basis of this and of the nation’s humanitarian responsibilities to its people wherever they are, the government will work to strengthen workers’ protection from the depredations of domestic recruiters as well as of overseas employers, agents and officials. The government will strengthen bilateral relations with countries hosting large numbers of Filipinos.
On the multilateral front, the Philippines will intensify its campaign for the ratification of the 1990 United Nations Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families, and the adoption of UN resolutions on the protection of women migrant workers. On the domestic front, the Administration will push for the enactment of a law on the right of overseas Filipinos to vote.
Institutional Implications
Noncareer appointments will only be made at the ambassadorial level and those who will be appointed will be selected on the basis of competence.
