Statement by the Secretary-General of ASEAN at the Fifth Conference of the
ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Information,
Bangkok, 13 July 1998

The environmental and financial crises that broke out at about this time last year have in recent months brought upon our region economic, social and political consequences of an awesome ferocity. We in ASEAN have responded to the crisis by bolstering our solidarity and intensifying our cooperation. The nature of the crises has focused our mind on what constitutes a major adversary: the perceptions of our situation that drive away confidence. Accordingly, we must respond by creating a perception that inspires confidence.

Since perceptions are crucial in promoting the region's economic recovery, then we in ASEAN are called upon to utilize our best communication skills to bring this about. Thus the information ministries of ASEAN member countries have a vital role to play in our endeavors to overcome the crises.

The audiences that we must reach are varied. We need to communicate to governments and legislatures of countries the world over, to international financial institutions, to the men and women guiding capital flows, and more importantly to our own peoples-for it is with them that confidence begins and ends. We do need to reassure our own citizens that their sacrifices will be neither in vain nor too long.

We have messages of substance to deliver to these audiences. We can convince them that we are earnestly instituting reforms where reforms are called for; and that we are addressing problems together as a region and as partners with all the resources at our disposal. Above all, we can communicate a judicious estimate of our present capabilities and potential, the fact that we have the most fundamental of fundamentals: natural, human and spiritual resources we have just barely begun to tap. In sum, we can and should communicate confidence.

We have considerable means to carry out this task. Aside from the mass media facilities that are in the hands of governments, there are those in the hands of our citizens. Even those media that we normally regard as in the control of the West are by no means entirety inaccessible for our communication purposes. It is just that in this age of information explosion, to communicate means to compete for space and time in media and for the attention of highly distracted audiences. We simply have to continue building on what we already have and learn to compete more effectively in a world of globalized communication- just as we are learning to be more competitive in a world of globalized trade.

In this regard, I should like to commend the ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information (COCI) for continuing to build a regional network for mass communication through the use of modern technology in combination with such resources as schools, libraries and archives and such methods as information exchange programmes and public events. But basic information on ASEAN must also be made available and widely disseminated. Accordingly, COCI and the ASEAN Secretariat must expand and intensify their work in producing information materials on ASEAN for the schools, offices, organizations and the general public.

This morning, we launched an expanded ASEANWEB. This new network now includes each member country's homepages in culture and information. Accordingly, this will enable us to link up instantly with one another and facilitate information access and exchange regionally and internationally. I am pleased to hear that steps are now being taken to develop and expand further this ASEAN net to cover the entire gamut of ASEAN cooperation.

I earnestly look forward to the early setting up and operation of the ASEAN Satellite Channel by the year 2000. This, I have no doubt, will enable us to make a quantum leap in promoting and developing a sense of community and ASEAN awareness among our peoples. In the course of our discussions, we may find it necessary to find ways of supporting and augmenting these laudable initiatives.

With or without the crisis we are in, we must continue to build that network and our capacity to communicate. Difficult and pivotal as it may be, this crisis will not find permanent lodging in our region. Even now we have to look beyond it and fix our eyes on the goals spelled out in the ASEAN Vision 2020. These goals demand of us a capacity to communicate no less tremendous than that required for overcoming any crisis.

Economic development, investment and trade require information infrastructures that make possible efficient, rapid and cost-efficient flows of data for decision-making. Cooperation with the many clamorous actors in the complex  process of global governance today entails communication skills of great sophistication. And I cannot imagine that we can build a community of caring societies that can respond to the needs and aspirations of our peoples, unless we are able to impart values and ideals to our own generation and those after us, to cultivate a love of ourselves as our cultural legacies have made us, and a healthy appreciation of ourselves as contemporary events are reshaping us. To educate and to inspire the peoples of an entire region would be among the loftiest tasks to which mass communication can be applied.

Last year, even when our skies had already cleared, it took some time for the Western media to proclaim the green light for tourists and visitors to come. We must counteract this and other similar situations. We must be able to communicate effectively or we will suffer dire consequences. It seems to me that our situation is nagging us with the command: communicate or perish.

The story of ASEAN must be told to all. It must be told to the peoples of our region to whose lives the work of ASEAN must be made relevant. Otherwise, ASEAN will miss its mission. Ours is a good story to tell and we are building the network to carry it  over. All we need now is to sharpen our skill and improve and expand our facilities to enable us to tell the story well. But most importantly, we must show, as a region, that we have the will to tell that story. I believe we have. That is why we are here. Together we will tell that story. We will tell it until it is heard.