PHL shares cross-pillar linkage success in Asean workshop
THE Asean’s Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPR) and its secretariat hosted the online Workshop on Promoting Crosspillar Coordination which discussed measures on enhancing cross-pillar cooperation.
Said workshop on August 13 addressed the increasing multiplicity and growing complexity of crosspillar issues at the regional level requiring increasingly harmonized and effective action among Asean’s three community pillars. Officials of the latter and the Asean Secretariat presented the emergence of cross-pillar issues and highlighted the accomplishments of the CPR in facilitating a consolidated regional response to them. Measures recommended at the workshop included the identification of the most critical cross-pillar issues to be prioritized in implementing the Asean Community Vision 2025, as well as strengthening
the coordination, communication and responsive actions on crosspillar issues across sectoral bodies and among Asean member-states.
The workshop also looked into case studies and lessons learned from Asean’s cross-pillar cooperation in matters pertaining to the Fourth Industrial Revolution and on transboundary haze.
For its part, the Philippines emphasized a responsive, strategic and holistic approach, shared its successful practice of cross-pillar coordination at the national level, as well as advocated a balance between the creation of ad-hoc cross-pillar and cross-sectoral committees and role
enhancement of existing coordination mechanisms within the region.
The country shared its experience in promoting cross-pillar coordination at the national level through the Asean Matters Technical Board which meets regularly to set and align national priorities with those of the bloc’s, while determining relevant committees and bodies that will discuss progress in these priorities.
Asean-philippines Executive Director Marian Jocelyn Tirol-ignacio led the country’s delegation composed of the Philippines’s Permanent Representative to Asean Ambassador Noel Eugene Eusebio M. Servigon, as well as officials from the Department of Trade and
Industry and the Department of Social Welfare and Development. Representatives from the Department of Science and Technology, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, Philippine Center on Transnational Crime and National Youth Commission also tuned in to the workshop. Participants to the workshop included leaders of Asean community pillars, senior official meetings leaders, representatives from sectoral bodies, and the CPR.
Outcomes of the workshop will be submitted to the Joint Consultative Meeting in October and the Asean Coordinating Council in November.