Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso, Permanent Representative of the Philippines to ASEAN, participated in a lecture forum in Chiang Mai University in Chiang Mai, Thailand on 16 January 2019 to raise public awareness about ASEAN and its work.

Ambassador Buensuceso, together with the Permanent Representatives of Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Thailand, served as panelists in the lecture organized by Chiang Mai University under the topic “CPR and Its Linkage to ASEAN.”

CPR is the Jakarta-based Committee of Permanent Representatives to ASEAN, which is composed of the Ambassadors to ASEAN of all ASEAN Member States.

“The CPR will continue to participate in outreach programs like lecture series in universities in ASEAN Member States to raise the profile of ASEAN and to explain to the people, including students, the work the organization has been doing to maintain peace and stability and promote prosperity and regional integration,” Ambassador Buensuceso explained.

The lecture, which was held before the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in Chiang Mai, was graced by Chiang Mai University Vice President Rome Chiranukrom and attended by at least 300 students, mostly from the university’s political science department.

Topics discussed during the forum included Thailand’s priorities for its ASEAN chairmanship in 2019, the role of CPR, the South China Sea issue, the “Indo-Pacific” concept or strategy, and developments in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) negotiations. END