Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso, Permanent Representative of the Republic of the Philippines to ASEAN, spoke during  the Regional Consultation on the Vision of a People-Centred ASEAN Community for the session entitled, “Towards More Effective Engagement between Governments, CSOs, and other Stakeholders. The event was co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand and the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism and held last 24 September in Bangkok, Thailand

During her presentation, Ambassador Buensuceso called on civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage ASEAN through relevant bodies, including the Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN (CPR), the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR), the ASEAN Foundation, and the various ASEAN Sectoral Bodies. She explained the process and requirements of accreditation by ASEAN of CSOs who want to become part of ASEAN community building and ASEAN integration. She mentioned that both ASEAN and its Dialogue Partners have set aside funds to carry out projects and activities specified in the plans of actions and joint statements. She challenged the CSOs to submit such proposals and work together with their sectoral bodies to obtain such funding from ASEAN and carry out the implementation of these proposals themselves.

On the other hand, CSOs voiced their concern over an apparent lack of consultation on the part of their respective governments in the decision-making process of ASEAN. They decried the apparent lack of information dissemination on how they can participate and their wish to have the documents of ASEAN translated in their respective national languages. CSOs attending the meeting included, NGOs, think tanks, academics, human rights groups, indigenous peoples, LGBT groups, PWDs and the elderly.

Ambassador Buensuceso described the approach taken by the Philippines in consulting with CSOs when negotiating major ASEAN documents, and encouraged all ASEAN National Secretariats to conduct information dissemination activities with CSOs and to socialize the ASEAN-Dialogue Partner Plans of Action and other ASEAN documents to enable CSOs to actively participate in this process, just as the Philippine National Secretariat does. She told the CSOs to hold the leaders of ASEAN accountable to the commitments they made in ASEAN documents.

She emphasized that the Philippines wants ASEAN to be people-centered and not just people-oriented, and, in this connection, to work towards the promotion and protection of human rights, fundamental freedoms and social justice to ensure that all ASEAN citizens live with dignity, peace, harmony and prosperity. Finally, Ambassador Buensuceso called on ASEAN to increase its engagement with entities associated with ASEAN and relevant stakeholders in moving forward the ASEAN Political-Security Community.

Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large at the Singaporean Foreign Ministry, Ong Keng Yong, Executive Deputy Chairman at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and Director of its Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy, Co-Chairperson of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism, I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja, Director General for ASEAN Cooperation at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry and representatives from various think-tanks and CSOs were among the more than 100 participants who attended the Consultations.