Activities for ASEAN50 Revealed

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of ASEAN, current ASEAN chair the Philippines has planned a variety of programs.

These varieties will be conducted under four pillars: culture and media, education and youth, environment, and other sectors. According to Elizabeth P. Buensuceso, Philippine Ambassador to ASEAN, under the culture and media sector, ASEAN will share the diverse aspect of ASEAN culture through performing arts and forms such as the Best of ASEAN Performing Arts and Forum on Maximizing ASEAN Nation TV Networks. She added that archiving for audio-visual heritage preservation will be conducted as well.

“Under the education youth sector, forms that can build capacities and engage the young generation of ASEAN will be conducted,” Buensuceso said, adding that, “over half of the ASEAN 635 million people are under 39 years old. Therefore, they are the future leaders who can carry on the ASEAN vision and the overall ties with dialogue partners.”

In the environment sector, she said the ASEAN Biodiversity Art and Film Festival is planned for wider publicity. “This is something new as far as ASEAN is concerned.” “Finally, ASEAN will focus on social security and health-related issues through conferences such as the Cross-regional Roundtable on Elimination of Violence against Children.

All these efforts will especially forge ASEAN as a community together on the occasion of its golden jubilee,” she added. (RJB/JCP/PIA-NCR)