ASEAN unity

Recent Philippine visitor – Malaysia’s House of Representatives Speaker Johari Abdul, is calling for more unity and cooperation among the 11-member nations/states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, which  comprises  almost 700 million people.

The ASEAN is a regional group composed of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, but has agreed to accept Timor Leste as its 11th member. It is a regional grouping that aims to promote economic and security cooperation.

Johari is, thus, urging the formidable regional and economic bloc to “take advantage of that population,” citing further that the ASEAN region “has almost everything. We have land, we have water, we have people, and we have the money. There is no reason why we cannot be a world producer of food, either rice or other crops. Why should we be depending on the others? So if we can get together, our experts can get together...as I said, we have land, we have God given sunrise, we have people, we have water, we have almost everything.”

But, he stressed, “What we need is courage to sit down and talk about food security, so that we not only become self-sustaining...but more importantly, become the exporter of some of the food stuff that counts... the entire world...saving the planet.”

He also cited the ASEAN region’s capabilities in terms of innovations, transforming digitalization, including vocational training and artificial intelligence...we have to innovate, we have to improve and we have to share information and experiences that we have...encouraging our academicians to cross borders...and talk about it... ensuring that this century is going to be the Asian Century, and I believe our economies are going to grow very fast with what is happening in China, in Korea and ASEAN.”

In fact, in Johari’s opinion, the ASEAN region is “at the front...the greatest economy in the world that probably if we can put our resources together, our technology together, our money together and our courage together... we can elevate our position together” by also collaborating with emerging economies like  China and India.

He acknowledged the tricky issue of security...”how we co-exist, how we can sit down and talk about it, admitting that “we have differences here and there, but we should not magnify those differences between us if any... ever... so let’s talk and sit down.”

The Malaysian lawmaker was in the country last week for a three-day visit to meet with his Philippine counterparts in the Senate and House of Representatives as Malaysia prepares to host the 46th ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in September. He has been touring the ASEAN region and its dialogue partners to attend the AIPA which presents the perfect opportunity for talks to cooperate and collaborate.

He urged the Philippines to do the “right thing” and to continue to “engage” with China by settling its differences over the West Philippine Sea through diplomacy.  The Philippines and China’s confrontational  encounters over the West Philippine Sea have been a growing irritant and have also posed a problem for the Philippines’ ability to tap its natural gas resources in the area which China is also claiming as part of its territorial waters.

On bilateral relations with the Philippines, Johari cited “a lot of opportunities for tourism to grow between Malaysia and the Philippines.” However, he stressed the need for the Philippines to get Halal certification, clarifying that a Halal stamp should be viewed as a certification of quality control ensuring that a product complies with Islamic Law.

The Philippines is working on improving its trade and tourism effort with Malaysia and Indonesia, and is eyeing better connectivity through the southern corridor of Davao, particularly through the Davao International Airport which the Department of Transportation is hoping to privatize. According to the DOTr, the Davao International Airport is the country’s third busiest airport. It is also hoping to better serve the Singapore route.

Sarawak, one of the 13 states of Malaysia and is actually the largest, accounts for 37.5 percent of the country. It is set to launch its own Sarawak airline that could greatly improve connectivity between our two countries.

Compared to Malaysia, however, the Philippines’ population of 120 million easily dwarfs that of Malaysia which has a population of just 32 million. Mega Manila’s population alone balloons anywhere from 20 million to 22 million on a daily basis.

Malaysia, according to its Ambassador Melvin Castelino, has heavily invested in education and infrastructure. It is blessed with abundant natural resources that include oil, rubber and palm oil.

It is planning to enter into a joint venture with Singapore to further develop a special economic zone in its Johor State near the border with Singapore.