‘Enough of fiction on Asean summit postponement’

Organizers of the 12th Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit and other leaders’ meetings in Cebu appealed to the public yesterday to end the speculations on the reason behind the postponement of the events, saying they were fictional and detrimental to the Philippines’ image.

ASEAN summit spokesman Victoriano Lecaros bewailed the persistent rumors, especially among some media persons, on why the events had to be moved to January.

Lecaros, also Philippine ambassador to Malaysia, said it was unfortunate that the simple necessity of postponing the summits in Cebu due to typhoon "Seniang" "has now taken the proportion of a conspiracy worthy of suspense novelist Robert Ludlum."

"What is happening now hews to the dictum of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels that if you repeat anything often enough, it would eventually sound like the truth," Lecaros said.

According to Lecaros, some people now believe that the summits were reset for security reasons and not because of Seniang because this theory had been repeated quite often in the mass media.

"It would be amusing were it not so detrimental to our national image — if not our national psyche," Lecaros said.

Lecaros said it had become "quite chic" among people to express doubt and skepticism about the real cause of the rescheduling of the summits.

"Truth is, the only real cause for the postponement was that blandest of all conversational topics in everyday life: the weather," Lecaros said.

Lecaros said the terror threat theory would definitely not hold water since the ASEAN foreign and economic ministers as well as the senior officials were already in Cebu before the summits.

"Why did all of them fly to Cebu City if there was a threat to their lives?" Lecaros asked.

He said the ASEAN ministers and senior officials even stayed one more day in Cebu after the announcement of the postponement.

Earlier, National Organizing Committee secretary general Marciano Paynor Jr. said the decision to defer the summits was supported by all the ASEAN ministers and senior officials who were already meeting in Cebu. — Aurea Calica