RP to join fight against North Korea, GMA vows

Saying the Philippines is within "striking distance" of North Korean missiles, President Arroyo said yesterday the country will play an active role in stopping the nuclear program of the communist state.

In her message at the start of the joint National Security Council-National Anti-Poverty Commission Cabinet meeting at Malacañang, the President maintained that the nuclear testing of North Korea "is not only a threat to peace and stability in the peninsula but to regional and global security."

"This hangs a Damocles sword above East Asia, threatens regional integration and places the prosperity of all peoples in this part of the world at risk," Mrs. Arroyo said.

"Freedom is at risk and the Philippines is within striking distance," she warned.

On Monday, the President said Filipinos "condemn in the strongest terms" North Korea’s announcement it had successfully carried out an underground nuclear test.

She said the Philippines joins the rest of the world in urging the North Korean government to drop its development of weapons of mass destruction and "to shift its focus on regional collaboration rather than intimidation."

Mrs. Arroyo expressed hope that the United Nations Security Council would come up with a solution to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons project.

"As a peace loving nation, we believe that nuclear weapons have no place in a shrinking world that places a premium on understanding and harmony, where our overriding interest is the pursuit of world peace, the resolution of economic imbalances and the global fight against poverty," she said.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said the Philippines, which chairs the Asean, will take an active role in the international efforts to stop the North Korean nuclear program citing the presence of many Filipinos in potential targets like South Korea, Japan, and the east coast of the United States.

He said the matter was to be discussed yesterday in the Cabinet meeting but he declined to give details on the government’s action on the issue.

"We take this matter very seriously because of the reputation of North Korea, it does not behave according to what we know as behavior of democratic countries," Gonzales said.

He said the Philippines does not want to be dragged into the potentially explosive issue but it has no choice but to take action because of the millions of Filipinos working overseas.

"As chair of Asean, we will have to craft a common Asean position vis-à-vis the issue," Gonzales said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), meanwhile, said Filipinos in South Korea are generally unperturbed by the crisis.

"They still feel relatively fine," DFA spokesman Eduardo Malaya said. He stressed, however, that a contingency plan for 50,000 Filipinos in South Korea is in place in case the situation worsens. He said the 36-page contingency plan had been updated in August.

Malaya said he was told by Ambassador to South Korea Susan Castrence that only five Filipinos called up the embassy in Seoul to express their concern over the crisis.

Castrence said the embassy in Seoul will coordinate with the Embassy in Beijing, which has jurisdiction in North Korea, to ensure the safety of the 18 Filipinos in North Korea in the event of a worse scenario.

Malaya said quoting Castrence that the embassy is "monitoring closely the situation and is confident to readily implement the contingency should circumstances require."— With Pia Lee-Brago