STRAIGHT FROM THE BIG CITY

Ike ‘Ka Iking’ Seneres
Cooperation at the local level

MANILA -- The multilateral cooperation model that was developed by the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum provides us with a working example that could serve as the basis for promoting cooperation at the local level between and among local government units (LGUs).

I have a personal fascination for the APEC model since I have seen it worked with my own eyes, when I headed the team that managed the information and communications technology (ICT) support for the round of meetings that was held here in Manila many years ago, when I was still concurrently the head of ICT for the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

The APEC model evolved around the legal fiction that civilizations are formed around great bodies of water, and that the economies of these civilizations could cooperate within a forum that would meet and address their common needs and concerns.

The idea for economies to cooperate within a forum is very much appropriate for APEC, because from the very start, it was intended to be an economic forum and not a political forum. This intention is born out of the legal fiction that there are no countries in APEC, only economies. It was necessary to pursue this legal fiction, because the geopolitical conditions in the region prevented its members from meeting as countries.

In the context of APEC, the Pacific Ocean is the great body of water that binds its members, serving as its common denominator. This is now the model for a local economic cooperation forum that will be created in the Laguna area between 24 communities that are bound together by the Pagsanjan River as their common denominator. Just like APEC, the Laguna forum will have Technical Working Groups (TWGs), Senior Official Meetings (SOMs) and Leader’s Meetings. I am looking forward to similar forums formed around other great bodies of water in the Philippines.
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The proposed economic cooperation forum that I wrote about in the previous issue is being organized as a joint effort between the La Salle Institute for Governance (LSIG), the La Sallian Institute for the Environment (LIFE) and “IN BUSINESS”, my forthcoming TV show at Flip Channel.

Without much publicity, LIFE has done a lot of ground work among the 24 local communities in the Laguna area where the forum will be formed, under the leadership of Engineer Ben Eusebio. LIFE is an independent institute within the La Salle system, formed by the Christian Brothers who are deeply involved in the restoration and the preservation of the environment.

Meeting Ben is actually like a sentimental reunion for me, since he was one of the foreign consultants brought home by the Transfer of Knowledge thru Expatriate Nationals (TOKTEN), a program of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) that I managed when I was still with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Ben is now a Balikbayan scientist that is back for good, with the clear intention of helping his mother country. To me, he is like a national treasure that we have re-acquired, having served in the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of the US government for 30 years. We are lucky to have him back, and there is no one better qualified to lead this initiative than him.

Joining us in the team is Dr. Francisco Magno, Executive Director of LSIG, and a well known political scientist. Also with us is Professor Louie Montemar of LSIG, another well known political scientist and my active partner in a political think tank group many years back. The last but not the least, we have with us Dr. Ric Javelosa, another Balikbayan scientist from the Netherlands who is an expert in water management. If you are wondering why we have 2 political scientists in our team, that could be explained by the fact that this is really all about good governance.

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