Asian Center 30th Anniversary Celebration

Address of President Edgardo J. Angara
at the Asian Center 30th Anniversary Celebration
on 28 November 1985
at the Asian Center Conference Hall

The Asian Center has a proud history. It was established in 1955 as the institute of Asian Studies. The Philippines gained its independence from the United States only some eight years back. Elsewhere in Asia, the newly independent countries were preoccupied with uniting their respective peoples into nations and re-establishing their national identity which decades and even centuries of colonial rule weakened but unable to erase. It was a decade of newly found freedoms for Asians but it was also a decade of national trauma and violence for others.

The Asian Center was therefore founded in the aftermath of decolonization and was born out of the aspirations for national identity and common desire among Asians to go back as it were to their roots.

The Board of Regents envisaged the Institute as "the common ground in which to bring together scholars and students in Asia, to develop among themselves a spirit of stronger kinship, mutual helpfulness and solidarity, and render it fit to serve as a rallying point in the joint endeavors of all Asians to preserve and advance their common cultural heritage".

Thirty years had passed since the Asian Center was founded. Scholars and students have come and gone to the Center for the purpose of understanding our Asian cultural heritage.

It is not for me to judge whether the Center has served its purpose well and fulfilled the vision the Regents had described for it. It is up to the Center's academic leadership and the faculty to make that judgment. And I speak for the Board of Regents when I say that such an assessment must be taken and that evaluation made.

The need for the Center's self-assessment is to me clearly called for at this time.

The thirty years that has passed since the founding of the Asian Center saw profound transformation in all the countries of Asia. In East Asia, Japan achieved the status of industrial power on par with the industrialized west. China went through the upheaval of the cultural revolution and is on a massive effort at modernization.

The six-member countries of the ASEAN enjoyed until lately unprecedented economic growth amid relative social and political stability. India and the rest of South Asia have attained steady self-reliant development. True, many peoples in the Indo-Chinese peninsula have yet to see the end of a new colonial rule, but they too will win their liberation.

Asia, in short, has shown the West that Asians can achieve development pursuing their own and differing paths to development. This is not to say that Asia with more than half of mankind have successfully solved their under development problems. This is also not to say that Asia have now become a region of peace and stability. It is only to suggest that Asians with their own unique traditions and ancient cultures have shown the capacity and ability to bring their societies to modernity without breaking them up in the process.

That I suggest is the main reason why the world at large see Asia and the Pacific as the most promising region in the coming century.

The promise that Asia and the Pacific beckons for the future ironically however makes it a magnet for superpower maneuverings. Its geopolitical importance even now attracts the design of superpowers. Rather than an area of peace and progress, the region is facing the prospect of becoming the next battleground for superpower confrontations, the way Europe was in the past.

The Asian Center is the University's window to Asia and the Pacific. If that is not what it is now, that is what I think it should be. Filipino professors and scholars steeped in knowledge of their own country should bring that knowledge to the understanding of their fellow Asian scholars and students. Steeped too in the culture, history and the economy of other Asian countries, our Center colleagues must share their knowledge of those other countries with our own countrymen. Only through the spread and sharing of learning and scholarship can the Asian Center truly affirm its role of fulfilling the vision the University has set for the Center.