PEACE-MAKER
Former Speaker of the House Jose C. De Venecia Jr.
In 2008, our co-chairman and then secretary general in the International Conference of Asian Political Parties, Chung Eui-yong of South Korea, who later served as his country’s National Security Adviser and then Foreign Minister, travelled to Buenos Aires, to explore ways and means of cooperation between our Asia-wide organization, ICAPP, and the Latin American political parties under COPPPAL or the Permanent Conference of Political Parties of Latin America and the Caribbean, which was then led by the Latin American statesmen Antonio Cafiero and Gustavo Carvajal Moreno.
The late Antonio Cafiero held distinguished government posts in Argentina, such as senator, governor of Buenos Aires province, ambassador, and Cabinet minister under the administrations of the renowned President Juan Peron and his wife Isabel, who became president following the former’s death.
Gustavo Carvajal Moreno of Mexico, who passed away a few years ago, served his country as congressman, senator, Cabinet minister, and president of Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI, which was Mexico’s ruling party for many decades.
We all agreed that it is essential to further increase cooperation and solidarity between our two continents through increased contacts and exchanges among the political parties to meet the current challenges and advance our common objectives of peace and prosperity.
We were all convinced that the strong bonds between our two organizations will contribute not only to further integrating our two continents, but also to bringing more justice and equity in international order by expanding cooperation in resolving differences through dialogue and consensus and bringing in more democratic values.
Our meeting led to the first inter-continental conference in Argentina’s historic capital the following year, between ICAPP, which now represents some 350 ruling and opposition political parties from 52 countries in Asia and the COPPPAL, which is composed of some 60 political parties from 33 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Since then, a regular meeting between our two groupings have been held in various cities in Asia and Latin America, which is our continuing modest contribution in promoting mutual understanding, trust, dialogue, and cooperation between our countries and peoples.
This increasing interaction between our two groupings is especially gratifying between the Philippines and Mexico because it recalls the historical era, lasting two and a half centuries, when our two countries mediated perhaps the first contacts between our two continents, Asia and Latin America, through the fabled Acapulco–Manila Galleon Trade.
‘Las Islas Filipinas’ were then a far-flung colony of Imperial Spain, governed from Madrid’s Viceroyalty of Mexico, and the great sailing ships, plying between the ports of Acapulco and Manila, were the main channels of East-West trade for some 250 years.
At the time there was no Suez nor Panama Canal, neither Texas nor California.
From 1565 until 1815, silks and brocades from China and Japan; pepper, cinnamon, and nutmeg from the Moluccas, Java, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka); cotton from Bengal and the Coromandel Coast; rugs and carpets from Persia; jewels, pearls, and gold in bullion flowed to Latin America in exchange for Mexican silver, in such volume that the Mexican peso became East Asia’s de facto currency.
And we are highly pleased that we are helping strengthen this historical connection through ICAPP, which we founded in Manila in September 2000.
In an increasingly globalized world, we seek strength in unity and a sense of shared purpose born out of our common history.