Alberto G. Romulo 

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate you, Sir, as you ably and wisely guide our deliberations at the fifty-ninth session. Allow me also to take this opportunity to express my delegation’s appreciation to Mr. Julian Hunte of Saint Lucia for his successful stewardship of the work of the fifty-eighth session.

The world has changed a great deal since our hopes and aspirations were enshrined in the Charter almost 60 years ago. What has not changed, but remains unaltered, is our collective desire to build a safe, tolerant and secure world, anchored in justice and social progress.

What has not changed is the very spirit and driving force that brought us together — we, the peoples of the United Nations. Those opening words of the Charter remind us that the United Nations is a creation of the peoples of the world. Those words compel us to recall that our Organization has been entrusted by our peoples with the sacred task of translating their aspirations into reality. They are words that tell us that we are assembled today not only as delegates of our Governments, but also as representatives of our peoples. With those words, the Charter freed the world from the notion that only States matter. With those words, the people were placed at the heart of our United Nations.

Today, the technologies and discoveries that make the world smaller and should bring us together are being used to tear us apart. Today, new forms of political, economic and social division directly threaten our people and the values and dreams they hold dear. These threats have the potential to overwhelm the gains of our Organization and to divide our peoples. All these factors have given rise to clamour for decisive reform in the United Nations. We should start with the basic reform of the structures and relationships that define powers and responsibilities. For our Organization, this means pursuing earnest reforms in the Security Council; the General Assembly and its subsidiary bodies; and the Secretariat. But addressing the most basic elements is also the most difficult thing to do.

Any planned reform of the United Nations should be endorsed by consensus by all 191 Member States. Any reform of the Security Council should give due consideration to the views of the five permanent members, as they will have the final say in the matter.

Any reform should also recognize that a country like Japan deserves to be considered for a seat as a permanent member.

We must all put our creative energies to work, spare no effort and ignore no avenue or opportunity in bringing greater peace and progress to our peoples. Religion and religious leaders have a role to play in fostering tolerance and greater understanding among peoples. They bring unique perspectives to the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms. Inter-faith dialogue between the peoples of different civilizations should also be encouraged. Deep and historic divisions can be healed through a dialogue between peoples of different faiths and civilizations. The Philippines will work with like-minded delegations in support of efforts to broaden such a dialogue.

Our peoples’ differences, whether of belief or of culture, should not be a basis for misunderstanding or conflict. But most of all, reform must begin by placing the welfare and interests of the peoples of the world at the forefront our deliberations.

In the 15 minutes that it will take me to deliver my remarks, 60 people will have died of tuberculosis. By the time the curtain falls on a Broadway show, 250 persons, mostly women and children, will have been trafficked into forced servitude or prostitution. By the time we wake up tomorrow morning, 3,000 children will have died of malaria and a further 6,000 children will have perished for lack of clean water.

Instead of having school books in their hands, over 300,000 children in conflict areas have their fingers on the triggers of automatic rifles.

HIV/AIDS kills 3 million people a year; millions of refugees crowd camps. One fifth of the world’s population still live in abject poverty, barely subsisting on less than the price of the newspaper sold around the corner from our hotels.

Terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the massive proliferation of small arms directly threaten the people and their livelihood and represent an assault on their dignity.

Critical flashpoints, most of which are in my part of the world, have the potential for armed conflict that would certainly place people and their futures at grave risk.

As a founding Member of the United Nations and as a current member of the Security Council, the Philippines places its faith in the Organization for the maintenance of international peace and security, the promotion of social progress and better standards of life and the protection of the fundamental rights of individuals.

People antedate the evolution of statehood. As we place people at the centre of the United Nations, I would like to highlight the need to protect their lives and the importance of ensuring their livelihood and promoting their dignity.

We must allow our peoples to live free from fear, to live in a safe and secure world. Terrorism poses a serious threat not only to the lives of our people, but also to the values and ideals that define our societies. Terrorism reduces people to mere pawns in a ruthless game of competing beliefs and ideologies.

The rubble in Jakarta has been cleared. Flowers cover the little graves in Beslan. But the enemies of all peoples are still lurking in the shadows, conspiring and plotting, with evil in their hearts and the blood of innocents on their hands.

The Philippines condemns all forms of terrorism. No cause or dogma can ever justify its use. Long before 11 September 2001, the Philippines and its people suffered from the scourge of terrorism. We have seen the face of terror and felt its deadly touch. We were among the first in our region to join the international war against terror. The Philippines believes that conflicts should be addressed before terrorism can begin to define or exploit them. This can be done by working together with other nations.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo believes that a new kind of peace has to be developed for a new kind of war, waged by terrorists. She proposes a new global alliance to alleviate poverty and remove it as a breeding ground for resentment and conflict.

With the help of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, violent secessionism has given way to peaceful autonomy in southern Philippines. The potential for terrorism to breed has been drastically reduced. In partnership with Malaysia, we are closer to a negotiated peace with the remaining secessionists, who themselves have renounced terror. With Norway as a facilitator, prospects remain for peace talks with one of the world’s few remaining communist rebel groups.

Another important dimension of human security is economic. At the national level, economic security means primarily providing livelihood for the people. In the Philippines, President Arroyo has enshrined that goal in her 10-point programme of action for 2004 to 2010. The programme calls for the creation of 6 million jobs in six years by giving more opportunities to entrepreneurs, tripling the amount of loans to small and medium-size enterprises and developing 1 million to 2 million hectares of land for agribusiness. If we are to maintain economic security, the international community should also make job creation a priority goal in international economic cooperation. The General Assembly should look more closely at innovative tools that will help spur economic growth, particularly in developing countries. Greater attention should be focused on how micro-credit or microfinance — an area where the Philippines has made significant strides — could serve as an instrument to alleviate the conditions of the poorest of the poor.

Creative ways to solve the lingering debt issue and the spiralling cost of energy should also be considered. We need to ease the burden of debt servicing and to channel those meagre resources to where they are needed most. Each day, developing countries pay the rich nations $717 million in debt service. Every baby born in the developing world already owes $482 at birth. Every year, sub-Saharan Africa pays $10 billion in debt service — four times as much money as the countries in the region spend on health care and education. The wise mobilization of domestic resources, such as remittances for development, should also be carefully studied. Remittances by migrants — much greater than the total amount of overseas development assistance — alleviate the poverty of the family members remaining in their country of origin.

Economic security prospers when the playing field is level for both developed and developing countries. Levelling the economic playing field ensures that the fruits of globalization will benefit the people in terms of better opportunities, more jobs and improved livelihood. International trade, investment and development are crucial tools in raising the people’s standard of living. But the people of poor countries continue to face persistent barriers to their products from the developing world. Those barriers exist despite the strictures of the international trading system, emphasizing the need for an open, rule-based multilateral trading system.

Economic crises in developing countries result in immediate threats to human security. When people do not know where their next meal will come from or when their crops will fail, human security is compromised. In an interlinked global economy, crises spread rapidly. The prevention and mitigation of such crises in developing countries also enhances human security in developed countries. A World Bank study shows, for instance, that the total elimination of agricultural subsidies in rich countries would increase rural income in low- and medium-income countries by about $60 billion a year.

Needless to say, international trade policy needs to be fair, not only to farmers of the developed world, but also to their counterparts in the developing countries. As a start, a substantial reduction in agricultural subsidies for farmers in rich countries would go a long way towards helping their fellow agricultural workers beyond their borders. There is also a need for developed countries to implement their commitments to allocate 0.7 per cent of their gross national product for official development assistance. Again, official development assistance is an instrument to help people help themselves — a social responsibility that is more pronounced now, in an era of increasing globalization. The inexorable pace of globalization fuels new phenomena and creates new challenges to human security. The fluidity of capital, technology, culture and even people should be acknowledged as inherent to globalization and should be harnessed for the good of the people.

Democracy and freedom — central elements to ensuring the rights and dignity of the people — should be encouraged and promoted, particularly in countries that are in transition or recovering from conflict. It is in that spirit that the Philippines supports the call for the establishment of a democracy fund. The Philippines is prepared to provide technical support and training in the areas of governance, the administration of justice, electoral processes and similar subjects, with third-party support. We will share our knowledge — a result of our own experience as Asia’s first democracy — since we have had to struggle to regain and preserve that very same democracy.

The world should continue to support the people of Iraq in their valiant effort to create a democratic, free, pluralistic and secure nation. The Philippines stands ready to assist in implementing Security Council resolution 1546 (2004) on Iraq, which was unanimously adopted during our presidency of the Council last June. The United Nations has a significant role to play in Iraq in the political process leading to the elections scheduled for January next year, and it deserves the full support of the international community in its efforts to build a stable and peaceful Iraq.

Conflict has devastating effects on the safety and security of people. The deliberate targeting of innocent civilians as victims is increasingly being used as a weapon of war and as a tool of terrorists. The movement of people across borders reinforces the interdependence of countries, facilitates the transfer of skills and knowledge and stimulates economic growth and development. In order to protect the security of migrants, we must give them the legal status that will enable them to gain access to basic services and will ensure the protection of fundamental rights. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families entered into force on 1 July 2003. We take this opportunity to call on all our friends to make every effort to accede to the Convention.

The interdependence and interlinkages among the peoples of the world require that human security should top the agendas of local, national, regional and global governance. Human security addresses the challenges of the twenty-first century, responds to our peoples’ aspirations as enshrined in our Charter and reinvigorates the United Nations in the process. Finally, in a world where people are sometimes reduced to images on a screen and their suffering distilled into pixels and fonts, perhaps we should again be reminded that, when we gave life to the United Nations almost 60 years ago, we ushered in a new era in the human saga, embarking on our historic journey with the words: “We the peoples of the United Nations ...”.