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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2023
Finally, the litmus test that should test the relevance and continuity of ASEAN as a regional organization is the disposition of its people to identify themselves as citizens of ASEAN. Therefore, the last dimension of my definition of ASEAN Centrality is my ardent aspiration for the peoples of ASEAN and those around the world, to increase their level of awareness about ASEAN, and concomitant to this is the need to raise their sense of identity or belongingness to ASEAN. ASEAN is an important regional organization; it should be known to those living within it and those outside. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. I have frequently lamented the lack of awareness and sense of identity by the people of ASEAN about their own regional organization despite its fifty years of existence. In a Philippine Star article I wrote for the 52nd anniversary of ASEAN (2019), I cited the following:
For a long time, people from the Southeast Asian region have identified more with their colonial masters than with each other, prompting the former Thai Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman to complain that these countries were like cloisons etanches (airtight containers), looking more to their former colonizers, than to each other, in searching their identity. Membership in ASEAN has changed all that. Today, the Filipino can boast of an identity that celebrates unity in diversity, the famous battle cry of ASEAN, signifying that people in the region can live in peace and harmony despite the differences among them. It has also enabled us to chart a common identity with the rest of ASEAN Member States (AMS). When Filipinos find a common identity with the rest of ASEAN, it does not mean that we should all have similar characteristics and ways of doing things. It means that we Filipinos have a shared dream with the rest of them, of living in peace and stability, enjoying economic prosperity and providing our people dignity, social protection and the means to face up to our common challenges.
My advocacy has been to make people become aware of ASEAN. ASEAN is not a perfect regional organization. Indeed, the many criticisms against it have factual foundations. Its member states are not the best exemplars of what the West would consider models of human rights promotion and protection.
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