KIKO TO ASEAN LEADERS: DON'T TURN A BLIND EYE
ON AUNG SANG SUU KYI'S CONTINUED DETENTION

Senate Majority Leader Kiko Pangilinan today called on the participants of the 40th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting to work towards improving the state of human rights in the region. Pangilinan, a staunch human rights advocate, cited the continued detention of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi and the alarming number of forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings in the Philippines as stumbling blocks toward peace and civil liberty.

"We challenge our ASEAN leaders to give the human rights situation a premium as they discuss the direction that the Southeast Asian region will take in the coming years. It needs to have a clear stand and strategy in protecting civil liberties in the region for the organization to have more authority in the international community. It cannot talk of economic progress and social transformation if political prisoners continue to languish and journalists, rights workers, priests and many others are shot in broad daylight for their convictions," Kiko said.

"We are aware that the founding principle of the ASEAN is noninterference in each other's internal affairs. Indeed, no country has the right to deprive Myanmar of its right, in its capacity as an equal member of ASEAN. However, how long must the world act as an onlooker? ASEAN, as the region's foremost organization that aims to accelerate social progress and regional stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law, must claim its stake not just in the case of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi, but also in the dismal state of human rights in the region," Kiko ended.