|
PRESIDENT Arroyo has created an interagency task force
“to act with resolve and urgency” in helping the Senate
ratify the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)
charter apparently in the hope the Senate could do so
before the 14th Asean Summit in Bangkok, Thailand, in
December.
The
body, set up through Administrative Order 229 dated June
18, will be chaired by the Department of Foreign
Affairs.
“There
is a need to create a task force composed of different
government agencies that will present to the Senate the
benefits, advantages and opportunities to the
Philippines of an Asean charter,” said the President in
issuing AO 229.
The
Asean charter was signed by Asean heads of state on
November 20, 2007, in Singapore, and must be ratified by
all Asean members before it takes effect.
To date,
six of the 10 Asean member-countries have ratified the
charter—Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, Brunei, Vietnam and
Cambodia—while Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and
Burma have not.
Some
Filipino lawmakers oppose ratification mainly because
its provisions on the protection of human rights had
been “watered down.”
Senate
Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. earlier questioned
the power of the approved Asean charter to rein in
member-countries like a dictatorship such as Burma whose
military junta has been widely criticized for its
human-rights abuses, and indicated that a Senate
ratification may hinge on this issue.
The
Asean charter task force will have as members the
Department of Trade and Industry, the Department of
Justice, the Department of National Defense, Department
of Labor and Employment, the Office of the Solicitor
General, National Economic and Development Authority,
National Security Council, and the National Antipoverty
Commission.
Other
government offices, private groups or resource persons
may be invited to join the task force as may be
necessary.
It will
coordinate with other government agencies for the
necessary information that may be required by Senate,
organize the resource documents pertinent to the Senate
hearings on the charter, and perform such other
functions as may be directed by the President.
The DFA
will provide secretariat support to the task force. Each
agency will designate a team to act as technical arm of
the task force.
The
Department of Budget and Management will source task
force funding from available funds of the
member-agencies, subject to the usual government
accounting and auditing rules and regulations.
The
charter is envisioned to relaunch the regional bloc into
a rules-based organization with a legal personality and
a stronger secretariat, and provides for the creation of
a Human Rights Commission. |
