Pinoy envoy leads global campaign on nuke disarmament

MALOLOS CITY , Philippines  — While the Philippines still has to disarm local warlords, a Filipino ambassador is heading the UN-led campaign on nuclear disarmament.

“We need a world free from the threat of nuclear arms,” said Ambassador Libran Cabactulan, president-elect of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference to be held in New York in May.

Cabactulan, a career diplomat and experienced negotiator, made the statement during a dinner forum at the sidelines of the Philippine Press Institute’s (PPI) election reporting workshop held in Cebu City on Wednesday.

During the forum, Cabactulan explained the dangers of nuclear warheads, saying that just a small amount of plutonium fissile material can cause massive deaths.

He stressed that since 1970, a number of nuclear weapons have been deactivated, but 23,000 still remain and 22,000 of these are in the custody of the US and Russia.

Cabactulan is hopeful that the incoming NPT review conference in New York will be a success.

“I think we will do better than the previous conferences,” Cabactulan said, referring to the 2000 and 2005 review conference of the NPT.

He said they are looking for ratification of additional protocols to ensure that no nuclear materials and dirty bombs will fall into the hands of terrorists.

“We have a big job at hand and this is a good opportunity for the Philippines to advance its national interests,” Cabactulan said.

In preparation for the 2010 NPT Review Conference, the Philippines hosted in Makati City on Feb. 1-2 a workshop on the NPT, to encourage in-depth discussions on various issues and problems facing the NPT regime and come up with possible solutions to these problems.

The two-day workshop on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons ended with a consensus among global nuclear disarmament experts and negotiators that chances for success of a key nuclear disarmament meeting in May are higher now.        — With Pia Lee-Brago