3rd Tribuna España-Filipinas

Closing Remarks
3rd Tribuna España-Filipinas
5 December 2007, Madrid

Since its launching three years ago, the Tribuna has become an effective platform for both our countries' thought leaders to exchange ideas and suggestions on the many ways our two nations can forge stronger relations, through investment, tourism, trade, culture and education.

The Philippines is now better able than in the past to appreciate its Spanish heritage with objectivity and understanding – our education and language, literature, architecture and the arts. Today, we see Spain less as a mother country but more as our sister country – a friendship we celebrate each year on June 30th.

On the other hand, we also wish Spain would show particular and more tangible measures recognizing our 400 years of shared values.

Two weeks ago, the Philippine Senate ratified the Treaty on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons between the Republic of the Philippines and the Kingdom of Spain. The treaty allows the physical transfer of Filipinos incarcerated in Spanish prison back to the Philippines, and vice versa, so that they can be closer to their support system of family and friends in their own country.

Earlier on, the Philippine Congress voted to abolish the death penalty in our penal system.

The two national acts of our Congress – an action unique among Asian countries – demonstrate our shared vision of the dignity of human life. That humanitarian value is an integral part of the Judeo-Christian legacy Spain has inculcated in us.

Strengthening RP-Spain relations

As His Majesty the King at the gala dinner he tendered in honor of our President, reminded leaders of both countries, "our bilateral relations are excellent, but require greater dynamism in the economic and commercial area."

First, trade activities between Spain and the Philippines have declined. Spain is now only our 31th trading partner, which amounts to a mere 0.20% of our total trade. The historic Manila-Acapulco galleon trade of the 17th century marked the first trade globalization in history. We have no reason why we cannot blaze that route again.

Second, Spain has recently issued a new migration policy to open up their country to more and more people from their former colonies in North Africa and Latin America. Where does the Philippines fit into this policy and what opportunities are given to us in order to take advantage of it?

Third, there is a gaping hole in cultural and educational exchange between Spain and the Philippines. As the King pointed out, we must create conditions favorable for entrepreneurs to get to know each other better and work together.

Spanish language teaching is the fastest-growing educational activity in the Philippines. The desire and demand for learning the language is overwhelming. The Instituto Cervantes in Manila is a veritable university with an enrolment of some 6,500 Filipino students. Imagine if Instituto Cervantes had an extension program in Cebu or Zamboanga, whose Chavacano dialect has thousands of loaned words from the Spanish.

As late as the 50s and the 60s, many of what became our future national leaders were beneficiaries of Spanish education. Today the United States, United Kingdom and Japan have become the Philippines' main sources of education and training. Why shouldn't Spain, our historical madre patria, become more involved in educating our people like it did hundreds of years ago when they built the first schools in the country? Why is there no significant number of academic exchanges and scholarships between these two countries?

The Philippines, too, has several irreplaceable Spanish colonial documents that Spanish scholars visit to do research on. These documents are poorly stored in the national archives, and in danger of perishing.

Last October, I spoke at the UN General Assembly High Level Dialogue on Financing for Development. While the UN Secretary General reported an increase in Official Development Assistance (ODA), these ODA flows are selective and uncertain. There are many poor countries that receive very little aid, while a few have experienced surges in aid flows.

ODA to the Philippines, for instance, has fallen for the past seven years. From US$13.3 billion in 2000, ODA assistance decreased by 29 percent to US$9.5 billion in 2006.

Spain has provided us 9 million euros a year, which is already 50% of Spain's ODA to Asia. This amount is really more symbolic. Much more important than money is the enhanced exchange of trade in goods and ideas.

Despite this, the Philippine economy grew at a high of 6.6% percent as of the 3rd quarter this year, surpassing its performance last year of 5.1%, and outperforming other Asian economies such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Korea.

In June of this year, 4 members of the Philippine Senate came to Spain at the invitation of Senator Jose Manuel Barquero, the President of the Spain-Philippines Parliamentary Friendship Group. On that occasion, we signed a landmark cooperation agreement between the Philippine Senate and the Spanish Senate.

We agreed to organize parliamentary encounters to discuss topics of mutual interest, especially those related to peace, human rights, security, terrorism, poverty alleviation, the promotion of sports, arts and culture and tourism and infrastructures as vectors for economic development. This is the first time that an accord of this kind was signed by the two parliamentary organs of both countries.

To translate all these aspirations into meaningful action programs, much more needs to be done on both sides.

In the course of the immensely successful state visit of our President, several agreements and commitment have been made, in the areas of investment and trade and culture. They are important milestones and provide some measure of optimism.

I end with the hope that the Tribuna will henceforth set up a mechanism to monitor and evaluate progress of the measures and projects taken up during the sessions, and a report card is regularly made at every Tribuna.