Sea dispute and terrorism to top Philippine agenda at Asean meet
The South China Sea dispute will be among the issues President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to take up at the 33rd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit in Singapore next week, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.
In a pre-departure briefing in Malacanang, Foreign Affairs assistant secretary Junever Mahilum-West said the president would also tackle micro, small, and medium enterprises, infrastructure development under the Build, Build, Build programme; economic integration, building and community, co-operation and connectivity; and “non-traditional issues,” like countering terrorism, violent extremism, combating illicit drugs, and human trafficking. Other topics of “interest” are women and youth development, disaster management, climate change and people-topeople exchanges, MahilumWest said.
A statement of the rights of migrant workers by the Asean is also expected, she said.
She said the document has been the brainchild of the Philippines ever since.
She said China’s installation of the weather system in the artificial islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) would also be discussed.
She said the Philippines assumed the co-ordinatorship of the Asean-China Dialogue partnership starting this year until 2021.
“We are quite sure that the South China Sea, as I’ve mentioned before, would be one of those regional developments that would be taken up in the summit,” Mahilum-West said.
“As to the details of the discussions, I cannot say. But for sure there’s going to be discussion on the South China Sea,” she added. She said next week’s event was the second and last summit of Asean for 2018.
Apart from their own meetings, the Asean leaders will meet individually with heads of state from dialogue partners in the format of the Plus One summit — Australia, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the United States.
They will also meet with leaders of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea during the Asean Plus Three Summit, as well as the East Asia Summit, which includes Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Russia, and the United States.
The leaders will also hold the second summit on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership or RCEP.
“The Asean Summit will be an opportunity for leaders to see the progress of the implementation of the Asean Community blueprints and the work in moving community building forward as well as bringing Asean closer to the realisation of a rules-based, peopleoriented, and people-centred Asean Community,” MahilumWest said.
“The related summits to be held in Singapore, on the other hand, will be an opportunity for the president and other Asean leaders to look into the progress of Asean’s relations with the dialogue partners and the deepening co-operation with them on a number of priority areas,” she said.