Scientific cooperation within ASEAN
AFTER 30 years of existence, it seems to me that the European Union ( EU) has done more than the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has, after the latter’s 56 years of existence.
Perhaps that is the way the European psyche works, to go more towards “binding agreements”, as opposed to the “non- binding agreements” born out of the Asian psyche of the ASEAN members.
But the fact that the ASEAN has grown in membership over the last 56 years, and it has kept the peace in the region all those years is already an outstanding achievement, considering that we could not even say the same of the United Nations.
But after 56 years of being nice to each other, I think that it is time for the ASEAN members to go into some “binding agreements” selectively at least, or as they call it in the diplomatic circles, to go into more “confidence building measures”.
Perhaps the best way to get this started is to go into scientific and technical agreements that would solve common problems such as air pollution, ocean plastic waste, wildlife conservation, marine research and earthquake information.
The first two areas that I have mentioned are already affecting some ASEAN members that are adjacent to each other, because these problems do not know political boundaries.
Generally speaking, all ASEAN members could also go into the sharing of best practices in good governance, disaster management and climate change adaptation, among others. These are under the framework of economic diplomacy.
HIRING OF CONTRACTUAL PUBLIC ATTORNEYS
I do not know how many attorneys the Public Attorney’s Office (PAO) has, but I am sure that the supply is always short of the demand.
Right now, the remedy to the shortage is for a judge to assign any lawyer, wherein the chosen lawyer practically works as a volunteer, under the legal fiction that he or she is also an officer of the court.
There appears to be no problem in assigning volunteer lawyers to serve the needs of indigent clients, but if it is done too many times, it could already affect the incomes of those lawyers, one way or the other.
Besides, if they are providing their services on a pro bono basis, they may not be giving their indigent clients the same attention as they would give to their paying clients.
The obvious solution is to increase the budget of the PAO, so that they could hire more lawyers, but the cheaper solution could be creating a special fund so that the PAO could pay some reasonable honoraria to these volunteer lawyers, so that they could be compensated even to a small extent.
I also do not know the existing distribution of PAO l awyers, but if that special fund could be established, it would be possible to assign volunteer lawyers everywhere in the country, because of the fact that there are indigent clients all over the country too. Any other ideas to help the PAO?/
The best way to get this started is to go into scientific and technical agreements that would solve common problems such as air pollution, ocean plastic waste, wildlife conservation, marine research and earthquake information.