A new regional order

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor CHERYL CRUZ Desk Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

In four months, another year will come, signaling yet another round of challenges and concerns for humankind. The buzz word now is the “ASEAN Community” by 2015, which was built and discussed extensively during the Cambodia ASEAN Summit in April last year, and in the Myanmar Summit last month. As if this integration among members of the ASEAN is not a big thing in itself, there is also the 2015 deadline for the eight-point United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.

In his recent visit to Dumaguete by former President Fidel V. Ramos, whose time is spent nowadays being chairman of the Ramos Peace and Development Foundation Inc., said his take “is that the Philippines is behind schedule in these two important endeavors.”

Corollary to this is the changing distribution of power in the 21st Century. Whereas power was concentrated in the Atlantic in the past, where it has actually been for the last two centuries, today power is rising in Asia, Latin America, and even Africa.

There is now an emerging new regional order in the Asia-Pacific. It is because “globalization is creating a new world.” According to Ramos, whose battlecry today is “caring, sharing, daring,” tensions could continue between democracy and authoritarianism.

Democracy like ours, we believe, has this advantage as it can grow political stability that an authoritarian regime cannot do. The country has experienced this before, and while it was referred as “the new society” at that time, the electoral process was marred and the rule of law was affected.

Peace and sustainable development can be achieved in free societies if each citizen is a true stakeholder.*