UN History and the Philippines (PDF)

SEVENTY-NINE years ago, on Oct. 24, 1945, the United Nations was born after a devastating World War, the second in the history of mankind. There is a famous story on its birth that I thought may have been apocryphal, until I actually read the primary source: \"Sen. Warren Austin of the US delegatio...

SEVENTY-NINE years ago, on Oct. 24, 1945, the United Nations was born after a devastating World War, the second in the history of mankind. There is a famous story on its birth that I thought may have been apocryphal, until I actually read the primary source: \"Sen. Warren Austin of the US delegation was chairman of the committee designing the official seal. A proposed design was sent round to all heads of delegations while we were still in San Francisco. When I saw it, I promptly went to see Senator Austin to complain. \'The Philippines is not on the world map\'! \'But, General,\' Senator Austin explained, \'your country is too small. We can\'t put every country on this seal. Don\'t you realize that if we tried to include the Philippines on a map of this scale, it would be nothing more than a dot\'? \'All right,\' I said. \'Give us the dot\'!\" The man was Gen. Carlos P. Romulo, writing before he died in 1985 in \"Romulo: A Third World Soldier at the UN.\" The Philippines, although just a dot on the map, had contributed much to the UN\'s development. In fact, even before we gained full independence on July 4, 1946, Carlos P. Romulo became one of the 51 signers of the Charter of the United Nations in June 1945 at the San Francisco Conference as a delegate of the Commonwealth of the Philippines. As he said, he was there \"at the birth.\" In 1949, he became the president of the United Nations General Assembly and was known as \"Mr. United Nations\" for his continuous work with the UN, which lasted 40 years. Although we are known to prioritize America in our foreign policy, when we created the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1946, headed by then-Vice President Elpidio Quirino as concurrent secretary, he started from scratch and formulated the four pillars of Philippine diplomacy, which prioritizes \"1) close cooperation with the United Nations,\" and only then \"2) close relations with the US.\" Followed by \"3) friendly relations with neighboring countries\" and \"4) devotion to world peace.\" When Quirino himself became president, he demonstrated this in a number of ways. When the International Refugee Organization (IRO), the predecessor of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), requested a safe refuge for what was called the White Russians, no country wanted to take them in since they were still reeling from the effects of the last World War. The Philippines, barely three years as an independent country, took them in. The White Russians, numbering around 5,500, were pro-Czarist Russians who fled the communist Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 to Shanghai, China, only to find themselves endangered by the establishment of the communist People\'s Republic of China in 1949. They were housed in Tubabao island, Guiuan, Eastern Samar, for three years, and when Quirino visited them, \"he had the fences taken down to make the people feel that they are not prisoners here, but they were free.\" Quirino\'s granddaughter, Ruby Quirino Gonzales Meyer, noted what was written on the identification cards of the refugees; they were identified as \"under the protection of the Republic of the Philippines.\" Kinna Mae G. Kwan, Guiuan\'s municipal administrator and historian, wrote in a journal article: \"Exuding the famed hospitality of the Filipino, the White Russians in Tubabao comprised the fifth of nine waves of refugees assisted by the Philippines since the 1920s. This episode is also the country\'s first international humanitarian assistance as a new Republic.\" This commitment to the UN was tested another time when the organization adopted UN Security Council Resolution 82 on June 25, 1950, which called on its member states to condemn the occupation of South Korea by the North Koreans. Only 16 countries responded, which included the Philippines. President Quirino told the 2nd Batallion combat troops, \"\...You who are to go now will be the first to carry the flag of your own sovereign nation abroad in the war for freedom\.... Poor as we are, this country is making a great sacrifice in sending you there, but every peso invested in you is a sound investment for the perpetuation of our liberty and freedom.\" During the Battle of Yuldong, only the Philippine line was not breached by the North, and we became known as \"The Stonewall of the UN.\" In 1953, Quirino even sent his own son, Lt. Tommy Quirino, and his son-in-law, fighter pilot Lt. Chito Gonzales, to Korea. Today, South Koreans thank the Philippines for defending their democracy, which has brought them much It's important for young Filipinos to know that the Philippines was a signatory to the UN Declaration on June 10,1942 when our own Carlos P. Romulo signed that historic document, when we were still a commonwealth and not yet an independent state. The Philippines is one of the 51 original members of the UN and had the distinct honor as one of the only four Asian nations that signed the UN Charter. Thus, this year, our country has had the privilege of having been an active participant in the formulation of global policies for no less than 80 years. Our country is a very active UN member especially in the negotiations, debates, and passage of landmark UN documents, like the Millennium Development Goals, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs. In the 59^th^ session of the UN's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights held in September 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland, the member nations urged the Philippines to review its policies on the war against drugs, as well as its overall human rights policy framework. Specifically, the Philippine government was called upon to look into issues on human rights violations, overcrowding of prisons, and was asked not to reinstate the death penalty. The Philippines was one of those that founded the G-77 coalition, founded in 1964 to promote collective economic interests among UN member nations. Filipinos have been elected seven times as president of the UN Security Council: Romulo in 1957, Jacinto Borja in 1963, Romulo again in 1981, Lauro Baja in 2004, Delia Albert in 2005, then Baja again, then Bayani Mercado that same year. In July 2017, President Duterte hit the UN for allegedly interfering in the Philippines' internal affairs. He said that when then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon attacked Duterte's handling of the drug war in the Philippines. Despite that, the fact remains that the relations between the UN and the Philippines remains strong. The following UN entities are actively operating in our country: FAO on food and agriculture, ILO on labor and industrial peace and social justice for the working class, WHO on global health issues, UNESCO, on education and culture, UNICEF on protection for children, UNHCR on refugees, IMF on monetary cooperation, and World Bank on financing of developmental programs.