Press Release - Cayetano, Pia: Manifestation on PH's hosting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF) and the APPF resolution

Thank you, Mr President. Mr President, I'd just like to commend his honor, our Senate President, our Head of Delegation, Sen. Dela Rosa, and everybody who made this a success.

I know that there was a lot of work involved, when you hear the candid reports, parang masaya lang. But what I wanted the public to know is that these kinds of events may make or break a crisis in the future that we will face. Because at the end of the day, these countries are represented by human beings, by people. And no matter what a country stands for, human beings are governed by their emotions. And emotions include deep feelings of friendship, deep trust for certain people. So when we are able to cultivate these kinds of relationships, not just with our neighbors, because the Asia-Pacific includes countries that are not our neighbors. In fact, I was surprised, because this was the first Asia-Pacific event I've been to that included South American countries. So parang naging Asia-Pacific plus, plus. I've never attended an Asia-Pacific organization of any other sort that included that. But it's a bonus.

So these events gave us the opportunity to really cultivate the relationships, and it's very likely that one or more of those who participated over the weekend, who we shared meals with, who we sang songs with, who some colleagues played golf with, will be the future Prime Minister of their country. And the problems we will face in the future are very scary, shortage of water, access to our own bodies of water, which we know is a very sensitive issue, use of resources, access to food supplies, and so on and so forth.

So to have these good relationships, Mr President, this is immeasurable. And I thank his honor for his leadership because you can go to any negotiating table and walk away with nothing. Despite all your good arguments, despite all the universal laws, all the general principles of laws on your side. But you can walk away with nothing. On the other hand, you can walk away with compromises, deals, programs that will benefit our people simply because we forged friendships during this APPF31 and the past one, and in the future.

So I truly commend his honor for his leadership.