‘Middle class needed to combat terrorism’

Speaker Jose de Venecia, who was elected as the first president of Centrist Democrat International in Asia-Pacific, called on all CDI members worldwide yesterday to help push governments to create an "Asian middle class" that could effectively combat terrorism.

"We have to defeat poverty because defeating poverty is the most potent antidote to terrorism," De Venecia told the participants in the three-day CDI executive committee hearing in Manila, which was concluded yesterday afternoon.

De Venecia said political parties in Asia and Europe must work out programs and innovative ways to bring about a reconciliation of the "forces of extremism and excessive fundamentalism with the forces of moderation."

This objective, he said, "could be worked out more easily in Europe than in Asia, where great regional diversity in culture, religion and politics and gaps in economic development would make it difficult to achieve." 

By creating a middle ground, political parties can use economic development as a tool against any terrorist threat.

"We must not lose sight of our goal, which is to strengthen the middle forces in order to create and expand the middle ground," he said. "There are areas where we have to create consensus."

CDI president Jose Maria Aznar and top CDI leaders are currently in Manila for a three-day meeting of the CDI’s top decision-making body.

On Friday, De Venecia called the launching of the CDI Asia-Pacific launching as "first step on our journey toward an Asian People’s Party" and offered his vision that it could be the "beginnings" of the first regional transnational party in Asia.

"This early, we can safely predict that regional groupings will become the economic and political units of the foreseeable future. Indeed, it is our fondest hope that CDI Asia Pacific is to become our continent’s first regional party," he said.

De Venecia said Asia, which is home to many great religions and civilizations, has acquired increasing importance in global affairs because of the rise of China, Japan, and South Korea, fueled by their fast-growing economies.

"National parties must guide other Asian states by becoming the instruments of development and a catalyst of change," said De Venecia, president of the Lakas-CMD party, currently the dominant political party in the country.

Among those who attended the meeting were Ferdinando Casini, president of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and new head of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU); Antonio Lopez-Isturiz, CDI executive secretary and secretary general of the European People’s Party; and De Venecia.

De Venecia also reiterated his proposal to the United Nations, endorsed by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, calling for a global large-scale debt-for-equity scheme to enable some 100 debt-saddled countries to pursue economic development by converting half of their foreign debt into equity.

De Venecia asked leaders of the 10 parties composing CDI Asia-Pacific to mobilize support endorsing the debt-for-equity program for approval by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Paris Club and other multi-lateral financing institutions.