This couldn’t have come at a better time.
Talk nowadays center on our relations with other countries and international organizations, but none can be more significant than our membership and participation in ASEAN.
The ASEAN Law Association (ALA), established in 1979, is a non-government organization that brings together all the members of the legal profession in the region. According to its website, the ALA is “a dynamic organization, moving forward in collaborative efforts, to understand and harmonize laws in the region. It continues to play a complementary role in promoting a common ASEAN focus on key issues and policies.”
The first ALA President was former Senate and University of the Philippines President Edgardo J. Angara, a distinguished lawyer and legislator in his own right. The current President for 2015-2018, himself a distinguished legal practitioner, is Avelino V. Cruz, who, together with Senator Angara, was one of the founding partners of the ACCRA law firm (Disclosure: Right after graduation from the UP College of Law, I joined ACCRA became part of its Litigation Group).
Just recently, the ALA had a Legal Forum at the Dusit Thani Hotel hosted by its Philippine National Committee headed by retired Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban. I’ve always said, both in public and in private, that reading Chief Justice Panganiban’s decisions was akin to reading The Great Classics.
Two working groups, the “ALA at the Crossroads” headed by Justice Lee Seiu Kin of Singapore, and the “Harmonization of Laws” group headed by lawyer Llewellyn Llanillo from the Philippines, a respected member of the legal profession, maximized the forum as a venue for preparatory work leading to the respective Resolutions up for submission to the ALA Governing Council in March 2017 in Brunei.
Not coincidentally, 2017 will also be the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN.
The Legal Forum was capped with a Reception which had, as its highlight, the induction to the position of Philippine Minister-Representative to the ALA Governing Council of some key members of the Duterte Cabinet who have been active with ALA through the years. These were Executive Secretary Salvador C. Medialdea, Justice Secretary Vitaliano N. Aguirre II, Transportation Secretary Arthur P. Tugade, Information and Communications Technology Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima, PAGCOR President and COO Alfredo C. Lim, and Solicitor General Jose C. Calida.
Executive Secretary Medialdea, Secretary Salalima, and PAGCOR President Lim are long-time members and officials of the ALA Philippine National Committee and ALA Philippines Golf Chapter. Modesty aside, I share with them many common experiences and anecdotes in the years of our participation in several ALA summits and council meetings around ASEAN: from the pedantic rigors of preparing position papers and resolutions in academic fashion, to the not-so-pedantic-yet-equally-meticulous travails of golf tournaments that are as intense and passionate as the Ryder Cup; to the camaraderie and fun every time the Philippine delegation performs with song-and-dance numbers that invariably sweeps every audience off their feet.
Modesty aside, again, I am honored to inform you, dear readers, that the Philippine presentation is the benchmark of all our other ASEAN brothers and sisters. It is also worthy to note that the performers of these presentations are members of the judiciary, legislature, the academe and the legal profession. Believe me, many was there a time when the Philippine performers were mistaken for those of the local entertainment scene.
Executive Secretary Medialdea is the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the ten-country ASEAN Summit to be held and celebrated in Manila for the whole year of 2017 as part of the ASEAN 50th Anniversary Celebration. A very good development, indeed, since this will facilitate the much needed coordination between ASEAN and ALA.
With the current move to ASEAN Integration, there is a need not just to strengthen our ties with our ASEAN brothers, but more so to fully know how our respective laws can be harmonized and applied with each other and to one another. The ALA has been at the forefront of this move, bridging the gaps and unifying the nations into something that can distinctly be called ASEAN.