Secretary of Foreign Affairs (Government)

What exactly do the tenets of the Philippine foreign policy stand for?

We have 3 pillars in our foreign policy. We have the political security, the economic stability and the promotion and well being of our Filipinos overseas. To support these three pillars, we also recognize certain realities of foreign policies to promote the Filipinos: it’s the interest security, its economic diplomacy, and the welfare of our Filipinos abroad. That is first the primordial importance in the security and economic sphere of China, Japan and USA. Also, the importance of the ASEAN to us of which we are a member. There are 10 Asian countries. In fact, we are the Chair of the ASEAN and just had the ASEAN Summit in the early part of this year. In addition to that, our foreign policy interest or reality is the OIC, which is the Organization of Islamic Countries. We have about 2 million overseas workers in the OIC countries. Of course, we work very closely with our multilateral starting with the United Nations, our membership with the ASEAN and the East Asian Summit. We also remember the ASEAN European Union, the ASEAN Regional Forum. We are a member of FEALA.

In terms of bilateral relations in the implementation of the policy itself, how do you believe that bilateral relations in the global context can be strengthened?

In addition to the multilateral relations that we have, we have bilateral relations, which are very important. For instance, when it comes to Filipinos overseas, one of our pillars of foreign policy, we are able to ask a declaration on the protection and promotion of micro importers. Of course, in political security, we have also the bilateral.

When talking about trade and bilateral relations with Spain, how much have they contributed to economic growth of the country?

Our times with Spain are historical, cultural and personal. Spain and the Philippines have been friends for a long time but we established our diplomatic relations in 1947. That’s why it’s 60 years now. As far as Spain is concerned, there have been Presidential visits to and fro. Last year, the President had an official visit to Madrid. This December will be the Visita de Estado of Spain. When the President does that, it would be the second. The first is President Diosdado Macapagal, the father of President Arroyo. Also in recent years, we have had increasing investments from Spain to the Philippines. We have trainings in Spain. In 2003, the Congress passed a bill making June 30 a Filipino-Spanish Day. We have just established the Tribuna Espana Filipina. This is also good to have closer ties not only among the academe, the NGOs and the people but also among the businessmen. In fact, this was inaugurated in Spain. Last we had the second Tribuna Espana Filipina.

What are some of the competitive advantages that the Philippines have over regional markets for Spanish and European investors?

One thing that we have been trying to catch the interest of the Spanish is the energy. In fact, I think they’re already here but we want to interest them more in investing in energy and also in tourism, hotels.

One of those that have talked to us in the past to abolish the death penalty is Spain. In fact, as far as that is concerned, since the time that President Arroyo sat, there has been no execution in the Philippines. The death penalty for our heinous crimes has been in our statute books. But in spite of that, the President did not want to implement that. In fact, she worked hard to be able to convince Congress to finally abolish the death penalty.

In terms of future economic prosperity, what is the country’s strategy?

It’s important that we improve our economic performance. It’s important that we increase our exports. But also, we are doing all we can to balance the budget. Once and even before we balance the budget, we want to spend more for our people in the country. That would also help investments from abroad such as the infrastructure that we are putting, the education that we want to provide our people, the health service. We believe that this is important with our bilateral and multilateral relations with other countries and it should also help us domestically. By 2008, we would balance our budget so we would have more expenditure for the vital needs of our people and the vital infrastructure that we need for foreign investments to come. We have an ongoing peace process with the MILF. With the help of our neighbors in ASEAN, we are enclosed to sign a peace agreement. Its importance is that there will be peace and development in the area. If development comes, there would be more prosperity. In fact, the European Union is helping here. In Asia, the biggest OTA beneficiary of Spain is the Philippines.

What message would you send in policy makers in Spain and Europe and investors looking at the Philippines now?

The Philippines is a peaceful and friendly country. Also, there are a lot of cultural, historical, educational and religious relations between the Spain and the Philippines. In investors, I think that you can see that we improve our economy in order to be at pace and I think we would be able to sign that peace agreement with the Muslims in the South. We are an open economy. We encourage investments and in fact, the President has made a special effort to see how we can help speed up the WTO process because we feel that it is the best for developing countries including the Philippines. Of course, that’s part of the free trade, to improve the economy, the lives of the people. It will develop industry, investments and so we are working and hoping that by May or June, we can come up with this process.

In the United Nations, several resolutions on interfaith dialogue, we have pushed that also regionally and nationally. In fact, one of the big factors in our peace process in Muslim Mindanao is our interfaith dialogue. Spain is also the co-sponsor of the inter-civilization and inter-cultural dialogue. What we want to do is put it all together because this is a very important initiative especially in this world. If we don’t understand each other’s faith and culture, we have countries in conflict.