The question to ask: What happens in Asean post-2017?

The question in people’s heads these days is: What happens to us in Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) post-2015? It is a reasonable thing to ask because next year the Asean Economic Community is slated for a “launch.” At the same time, the eight Millennium Development Goals are set to “expire.” A scenario vacuum is in sight, and our speculations about the future are gripped by a certain sense of anxiety. And commentators constantly ask: Is the Philippines indeed ready for Asean integration?

This last quandary is an exercise in futility. Whether we like it or not, the Asean Community is happening. You either tame the wave by riding on the crest, or are swallowed up, surface above the water to wait it out alone, and see if something of the same majestic scale comes your way again. It is a sea of opportunity.

Thus, I believe the question that really matters is: What happens in Asean post-2017? The year is significant because of two events: First, Asean will celebrate 50 years, and second, the Philippines will assume its chairmanship. Taking the driver’s seat will mean a real chance of influencing the social and political agenda of the most diverse regional bloc in the world today.

Last Sept. 10, I attended the second of the very first two consultation meetings with civil society organized by the Department of Foreign Affairs. A panoply of priorities and Philippine “advocacies” were raised under each of the three Asean community pillars (political-security, economic, and sociocultural). I could then see three overarching concerns that can help us strategize our policy options: the creation of a rules-based organization, the expansion of stakeholder participation, and the pursuit of regionwide projects. My observations here deliberately leave the more specific economic initiatives of Asean to the expertise of my friends and colleagues who have written on these pages.

Rules in international relations broadly fall into two categories between the tacit and less so, or the formal ones that create legal obligations in international law. Rules emerge from the interaction and shared practices of states, and they combine to form institutions like war, diplomacy and equal sovereignty in the international system. During the consultation, Ambassador Rosario Manalo pointed out what may be the most exciting innovation on rules that guarantee the rights of individuals and special groups—the plan of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission for Human Rights (AICHR) to set up protection mechanisms to eliminate violence against women and children. This will legitimize the work of AICHR, which has so far been dismissed as a window-dressing exercise, and eventually pave the way for a human rights convention.

Now the agents who are changing the rules of the game are the moral entrepreneurs who believe that political accountability belongs to the state as much as it rests on its citizens. In this arena, the Philippines naturally leads because it has cultivated the most vibrant civil society movements. During the consultation, special-interest groups, including migrant workers, the LGBT community, and persons with disability, were able to lobby freely for their rights. Interestingly, there was a resounding appeal for dialogue between these groups and the religious, and not the political leaders, to represent their faith communities. These voices are threatened either by dominant regional political elites or the ignorance that poverty breeds among the poor and uneducated. Ambassador Luis Cruz and Tess Daza, both from the DFA Office of Asean Affairs, were therefore quick to recognize this need and make the consultation happen.

If this is to be taken to the next level up, however, institutionalizing consultation with civil society organizations (CSO) in the DFA will not be enough. The Philippine CSO experience must be socialized first among all national agencies and then with its Asean counterparts through regional consultations in all sectors. An interface meeting with the Asean foreign ministers themselves ought to be forthcoming. The reason for this is threefold: The first 50 years of Asean were about an association, the next 50 will be about building a community; secondly, the Asean way is to share, instead of impose; and finally, democracy, in essence, is a process, not a model.

In 2017, the Philippines will host hundreds of nearly 1,200 Asean meetings that will be attended by leaders and government officials from all the 10 member-states. It is time to connect with the region by sourcing out these meetings in key cities strategically placed to testify to the Philippine experience in air and sea transport integration, climate change adaptation and disaster management, peacekeeping and gender mainstreaming—all Philippine advocacies that must be supported with substantive work in a venue with meaningful aesthetic impact.

It will be the time for the country to showcase two of its greatest strengths—its people and their fight for human dignity. The third forte, hitherto undervalued, are the islands that bejewel the archipelago, comprising a diversity and wealth of resources unique to this country. The fact that the Philippines stands in isolation can be a source of strength or a debilitating condition, and we should awake to the reality that the first ones with whom we can multiply the gifts we possess are our friends and neighbors.

This is what it means to be an archipelago.

Kevin H.R. Villanueva is a research fellow of the HZB School of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Philippine Women’s University and founding director of ARISE (Asean Research Institute for Strategic Studies and Enterprise). The views expressed in this article are his own.