The Philippines will continue to ensure the effectiveness of its participation in ASEAN-led activities, the country’s Ambassador to Viet Nam Jerril G. Santos told the Viet Nam News Agency in a recent interview.

“The Philippines recognizes that while the ASEAN Community has already been established, there is the shared recognition among Member States that the community­ building process shall continue,” the Ambassador said.

He noted that most of the targets have been fulfilled by ASEAN but a few measures under the blueprints for the APSC, AEC and ASCC still need to be fulfilled during the remainder of 2015 or in 2016.

Philippines' Ambassador to Viet Nam Jerril G. Santos

According to the diplomat, the recent adoption of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on ASEAN 2025 at the second ASEAN Summit in November 2015 marks the next phase of community-building by setting the goals that ASEAN needs to achieve in the next 10 years.

Ambassador Jerril G. Santos said in recent years, the Philippines has utilized its own national coordinating mechanism, namely the Philippine Council on Regional Cooperation (PCRC), to ensure proper coordination among government agencies in ASEAN-related policy development and the implementation of projects that have ASEAN-wide application.

The ambassador affirmed that as a founding member of ASEAN, active participation in the ASEAN system has always been at the forefront of the Philippine’s foreign policy priorities. The Philippines has steadily contributed to the community-building process through its active participation in achieving the targets set in the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community, which is composed of blueprints for each of the three pillars, namely the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).

(Source: VNA)