INQUIRER.net
CHA-AM, Thailand—The trend toward involving people's organizations and civil society groups in the process of integrating the southeast Asian region appears to have taken a U-turn after the bloc's secretariat and government officials from member-nations snubbed the Asean People's Forum here.
The ongoing three-day APF from October 18-20 included a scheduled dialogue with officials of the Asean secretariat and some officials from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam on the three pillars of Asean, namely the economic, the political, and the socio-cultural.
But on the eve of the opening of the Forum, those who confirmed sent their apologies.
Asked if there were indications that the invitations were deliberately turned down, Swee Seng Yap, executive director of Forum Asia, one of the organizers of the meeting, said: “It is difficult to speculate because there were no official reasons given.”
“We can only express disappointment because we are concerned with the process. This is going backward. In the last APF in February 2009, our dialogue was with the Asean director general himself and the Thai foreign minister,” said Yap, who is also part of the Network for Transformative Social Protection.
“This is bad for Asean as this goes against the people-centered aspirations committed in the Asean Charter,” he added.
The Asean Secretariat was supposed to send the deputy secretary general but there was a conflict in schedules, said Jenina Joy Chavez of the Focus on the Global South and part of the steering committee of the Forum.
“While we want to take the process a step forward, they want to take a step backward,” Yap said, noting that in the February 2009 meeting, some governments were uncomfortable engaging with civil society.
“From the last engagement, maybe they wanted to scale back and control the process.”
Thailand, as host of the Asean Summit that follows the APF, sent some officials, including Asda Jayanama, former Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations in New York, who presented the developments in the Asean socio-cultural integration and reacted to the issues raised by the civil society.
From the Philippines, a representative from the Department of Labor and Employment was supposed to participate in the dialogue on socio-economic issues. Secretary Heherson Alvarez, presidential adviser on climate change, or Ambassador Orlando Mercado, Philippine Permanent Representative to Asean, were also supposed to speak on environmental issues.
Some 600 people from scores of organizations in the region attended the meeting, which was instead reformatted to a conversation among the participants.
The Network for Transformative Social Protection, which is pushing for basic rights for jobs and livelihood, homes, education, health care services, electricity, and clean air and water for everyone, asked that Asean recognize civil society participation and its input in “Development for a United Asean.”
The Asean Summit here will follow the ASEAN People's Forum on October 23-25.
Asean groups together Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The ongoing three-day APF from October 18-20 included a scheduled dialogue with officials of the Asean secretariat and some officials from Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam on the three pillars of Asean, namely the economic, the political, and the socio-cultural.
But on the eve of the opening of the Forum, those who confirmed sent their apologies.
Asked if there were indications that the invitations were deliberately turned down, Swee Seng Yap, executive director of Forum Asia, one of the organizers of the meeting, said: “It is difficult to speculate because there were no official reasons given.”
“We can only express disappointment because we are concerned with the process. This is going backward. In the last APF in February 2009, our dialogue was with the Asean director general himself and the Thai foreign minister,” said Yap, who is also part of the Network for Transformative Social Protection.
“This is bad for Asean as this goes against the people-centered aspirations committed in the Asean Charter,” he added.
The Asean Secretariat was supposed to send the deputy secretary general but there was a conflict in schedules, said Jenina Joy Chavez of the Focus on the Global South and part of the steering committee of the Forum.
“While we want to take the process a step forward, they want to take a step backward,” Yap said, noting that in the February 2009 meeting, some governments were uncomfortable engaging with civil society.
“From the last engagement, maybe they wanted to scale back and control the process.”
Thailand, as host of the Asean Summit that follows the APF, sent some officials, including Asda Jayanama, former Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations in New York, who presented the developments in the Asean socio-cultural integration and reacted to the issues raised by the civil society.
From the Philippines, a representative from the Department of Labor and Employment was supposed to participate in the dialogue on socio-economic issues. Secretary Heherson Alvarez, presidential adviser on climate change, or Ambassador Orlando Mercado, Philippine Permanent Representative to Asean, were also supposed to speak on environmental issues.
Some 600 people from scores of organizations in the region attended the meeting, which was instead reformatted to a conversation among the participants.
The Network for Transformative Social Protection, which is pushing for basic rights for jobs and livelihood, homes, education, health care services, electricity, and clean air and water for everyone, asked that Asean recognize civil society participation and its input in “Development for a United Asean.”
The Asean Summit here will follow the ASEAN People's Forum on October 23-25.
Asean groups together Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
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