Noy says APEC should focus on terrorism, economy, climate change

MANILA, Philippines - The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit should focus on areas where member-economies can have unity in dealing with global concerns like terrorism, the economy and even climate change, President Aquino said.

“There’s still tumult in the global economic sphere. The question of refugees is also in the forefront of everybody’s minds; stability, terrorism, pandemics. But that is where fora like APEC come into the picture – a platform where we can really concentrate on synergies and complementarities among the various economies, leading to positive changes in each of our individual societies,” Aquino said in an interview with the APEC Secretariat hours before the terror attacks in Paris that killed and injured hundreds of people.

“This opportunity wherein our focus is to concentrate not on disputes, not on issues that might divide us, but rather how do we actually get to the point to help each other to address this nagging concern common to all of us,” he said.

“So, skills that we have, skills that you have, present complementary skill sets that can be used to both of our advantages,” Aquino said in the interview.

Aquino said he and his officials would try to move the agenda toward “making the ‘C’ portion of APEC even more apparent to everybody” and that “hopefully, in addressing all of the concerns, all the problems and the issues, perhaps the world leaders will agree to say solving problems is also more fun in the Philippines.” 

Aquino said the threat of climate change was also more pronounced now, along with pandemics like the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus or MERS-CoV, Ebola and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome or SARS.

“In that sense, you have to provide the basics for a lot more and give them a new set of challenges with it. Perhaps the biggest, greatest difference is the degree of cooperation amongst the different economies in addressing what are increasingly less parochial problems and more global in nature,” Aquino said.

The President stressed that climate change is high on his agenda.

“We have a lot of our communities situated, especially on the Pacific side, where increasingly more and more violent storms are coming to the forefront,” Aquino said.

“We’re trying to get away from the cycle of destruction brought about by typhoons and reconstruction that doesn’t change anything,” he said.

“We get visited by 20 typhoons a year. So, stop the pattern of destruction-reconstruction, destruction again, reconstruction again. Let’s build back the communities better, wherein it is not a guarantee that there will be communities that will be destroyed come this impact,” Aquino said.

Greater cooperation

He said international platforms like APEC can help world leaders plan their approaches to solving problems as well as facilitate greater cooperation with other leaders.

“APEC, in particular, is a unique platform wherein there are no binding agreements; where the discussions, therefore, can be really be free-wheeling; can really explore those that a conservative-minded individual would not want to discuss openly, suddenly is encouraged to do so, which, again lays the groundwork for greater cooperation towards those agreements that are binding,” Aquino said.

“Perhaps, in a sense, this is the real incubator, especially for the more revolutionary changes that you want to happen,” he said. 

Alan Bollard, executive director of the APEC secretariat, also made clear only economic matters are up for discussion during the summit, although security issues can be discussed during bilateral meetings.

“APEC is about economic matters only. We are not like ASEAN or some of the other arrangements that would include security issues. So formally around the APEC table those things do not get discussed. They are not part of formal APEC agendas,” Bollard said in a press briefing at the International Media Center.

“There will be a series of bilateral meetings. Those are private meetings between parties taking advantage of the fact that they are all here,” Bollard said. – With Pia Lee-Brago, Paolo Romero