The Philippine Embassy assumed the six-month rotating chairmanship of the ASEAN Committee in Abuja from the outgoing chair Malaysia on 28 January 2023 during a working luncheon held in Abuja’s Central Business District.
Mr. Roderico C. Atienza, Chargé d’affaires, a.i. and Consul General of the Philippine Embassy, officially started his chairmanship well into the year after Malaysian High Commissioner Gloria Corina Peter Tiwet stepped down just two days after six months as ACA Chair starting on 26 July 2022.
On her last day as ACA Chair, High Commissioner Tiwet rendered a report of the nine events and activities undertaken by the ACA members under her leadership from 1 July to 31 December 2022, including the ASEAN Day celebration on 8 August 2022 and a courtesy call on the Nigerian Foreign Minister Geoffrey Onyeama, on 1 November 2022.
In his first act as Chair, Mr. Atienza presented on behalf of the other ACA members the outgoing ACA Chair with a farewell gift, a coffee table book entitled “Of Souls, Ascents & Stillness: Nigerian Contemporary Artists in Abuja” (2022). High Commissioner Tiwet ended her term as Malaysia’s top envoy in Nigeria on 1 February 2023.
The term of ACA Chair is rotated alphabetically every six months among the diplomatic missions of the five ASEAN member-states (AMS) resident in Abuja: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
The ACA is one of the ASEAN Committees in Third Countries (ACTC) set up in accordance with Article 43 of the ASEAN Charter to promote ASEAN’s interests and identity in the respective host countries and/or international organizations.
To date, 55 ACTCs have been established outside the 10 ASEAN member-states to assist in coordinating and facilitating ASEAN matters in their respective host countries. ACA is one in at least three in Africa, including Nairobi in Pretoria.
The last time the Philippines was officially ACA chair was in July-December 2020, although COVID-19 lockdown prevented the holding of any official events.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Department of Foreign Affairs, Republic of the Philippines.
