Inclusion and why ASEAN means a lot to us
METRO Manilans will have their fill of ASEAN activities over the next few days. Wading through special EDSA lanes and weekend traffic before the summit shows us the lengths at preparing the country for this event, which is more important to us than we think. Here are three reasons.
One, the geopolitical significance of the ASEAN Summit lies in the prominence the regional body has gained over the last decade. The South China Sea issue is a magnet of interest for many countries for which the assurance of freedom of navigation is a concern.
Moreover, that this is held in Manila amplifies the Philippines’ role as the bloc’s chair, the fastest growing economy with an apparently influential President. That he has gathered dialogue partners Russia, the US, China, and even Canada to the table, and got China to assure peace in contested waters (https://www. voanews.com/a/china-xi-philippinesduterte-south-china-sea/4111505. html) is a positive step, what with the US government offering to mediate, rather than antagonize the issue. This is a diplomatic outcome many will scrutinize and probably hail. It puts the Philippines as a facilitator of giants on the world stage.
Two, the economic significance of ASEAN as a trading bloc shows it headed towards being the world’s third largest economy, possibly eclipsing even the European Union in a few years as major economy Britain leaves it.
Lying at the crossroads of economic giants, Southeast Asia is on the doorstep of the next great economic superpower and its One Belt, One Road and is key to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and new bodies like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). ASEAN’s young, growing, and increasingly affluent economies make a very important economic partner for China and the West that seeks to keep its own growth humming.
Third, ASEAN’s cultures mirror our own in deep ways that the West will never supplant. Enter Southeast Asian households and you find familiar food and folkways and patterns of behavior that are unfamiliar to the West yet reflect our own. This familiarity opens doors and refreshes linage, elevating partnerships beyond individual gain and obtaining mutual trust.
These three points create important opportunities that underscore the President’s message of urgency in achieving greater economic inclusion for ASEAN, where a significant fourth remains poor.
While its dialogue partners see a strong emerging market of consumers for their products, we need to see how the regional economy of 600 million can achieve greater inclusion to spread the opportunity for more to grow. In the President’s speech in Danang before the APEC summit, he clearly outlined why this is needed: Inclusion is vital to sustaining further growth. Without it, ASEAN loses the fore mentioned opportunities to become that global economic power.
His words are a concern because while ASEAN as a whole has reduced the number of poor from 47% in 1990 to 14% in 2015, the Philippines and a few others are still a few points away from beating their own targets (16%) per the Millennium Development goals, with Mindanao far from Luzon in terms of the number of poor. (http://asean.org/storage/2012/05/ ASEAN_MDG_2017.pdf)
Thus, we in Mindanao understand him and why he calls for greater inclusion in the opportunities for a substantial number who remain excluded, since we have lived an existence long removed from Manila’s economic and power corridors. We also understand how growing this once excluded island will pave the way for ASEAN economic integration to deliver benefits to the rest of the country.
We realize why when we see the important infrastructure like our old crumbling bridges being rebuilt and widened, and new coastal highways constructed to ease traffic woes. We have also seen how peace builds the common prosperity we all seek. We know that hopes are afresh for all these developments to take place as we claim our own place as the Philippines’ economic and cultural door to ASEAN.
Congrats to the UP Maroons
As the UAAP Season 81 basketball season ends for the UP Fighting Maroons men’s basketball team they have already equalled what many believe to be their best season bannered by guard Marvin Cruz under then coach Lito Vergara in Season 67 and 68, where, with the same win-loss card, they missed the same narrow chance to make the final four. they, however have come a long way.
Nonetheless, gauging from the 104-86 drubbing of powerhouse National University, next year’s season will see an even stronger team. The Gomez de Liano brothers are sure to excite, as will the Cebuano backourt tandem of Jun Manzo and Paul Desiderio who will shoot from afar. Expected to fill the middle is incoming big man Bright Akhuetie. They will be fast, big and small, and will give all teams a run for their money, just as they did this season.
Perhaps nowhere are they loved more than at the UP Mindanao campus, where they came in the hundreds to support them to beat the Ben MBala-led DLSU Green Archers in a hard-fought, stadium-filling championship game at the last Araw ng Davao invitational tournament last March.