8 August 2022, Bandar Seri Begawan – The Philippine Embassy in Brunei Darussalam commemorated the 55th Founding Anniversary of ASEAN at a Flag Raising Ceremony held in Embassy grounds. The ceremony honored the contributions to ASEAN of former President Fidel V. Ramos who passed away on 31 July 2022.
The Philippine flag was lowered at half-mast in keeping with the period of national mourning and Philippine Embassy personnel wore black armbands in honor of the former President. Also present at the ceremony were the first batch of pilots to begin the 2022 recurrent Philippine Air Force S-70i Black Hawk Simulator Training in Brunei, Major Paul R. Durano and Major Christopher G Rabina.
In a brief statement delivered at the Flag Raising Ceremony, Philippine Ambassador Marian Jocelyn R. Tirol-Ignacio gave praise to President Fidel V. Ramos as an outstanding statesman who served from 1992 to 1998 as the 12th President of the Republic of the Philippines. The former President is the son of ASEAN Founding Father, Narciso Ramos, one the Philippines’ first diplomats.
Amb. Tirol-Ignacio recalled the Ramos years when “ASEAN adopted, upon the Philippines’s initiative, the 1992 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to preserve peace among claimant states. The Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines -East Asia Growth (BIMP-EAGA) area was organized in 1994 to promote economic development within the ASEAN sub-region. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the only multilateral government level security dialogue in the Asia-Pacific region was established in 1994.”
It was during the Ramos years that “ASEAN began its expansion to a membership of 10 starting with Vietnam in 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar in 23 July 1997, and finishing up with Cambodia in 30 April 1999, to make ASEAN into the truly regional organization it is today,” she added.
On the same day, Ambassador Marian Jocelyn R. Tirol-Ignacio also joined other resident Heads of Mission of ASEAN Member States and ASEAN Dialogue Partners at a Flag Raising Ceremony organized by the Government of Brunei Darussalam to commemorate ASEAN Day at the International Convention Center in Bandar Seri Begawan.
The event was presided by H.E. Emaleen Abd Rahman Teo, Permanent Secretary for ASEAN of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam.
ASEAN is hailed as the one of the most successful inter-governmental organizations in the world today, bringing peace, stability and prosperity to the region for over 50 years. Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN has played a major role in the development of the Southeast Asian region. Consisting of its ten Member States: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, ASEAN is home to a total of 661.8 million people with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of US$ 3.2 trillion. END
