PEACE-MAKER By FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER JOSE C. DE VENECIA JR. Jose C. De Venecia Jr. Leaders and representatives of political parties from Asia, as well as observers from political groups from Europe, Latin America and Africa, convened last December 13-16 at the resort city of Terengganu, Malaysiafor the inaugural assembly of the Tourism Promotion and Inter-City Cooperation (TOPIC) Council, a subsidiary group under our International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP). We in ICAPP created the group dedicated to tourism promotion and cooperation as our modest contribution in upholding sustainable and dynamic tourism, which is one of the biggest and fastest growing industries in Asia and in the world. With the TOPIC Council, our 350 political party-members from 52 countries in Asiaincluding our political parties from the Philippines, will have an avenue for collaboration and exchange of best practices and strategies to further boost the tourism traffic in our Asian region. Our good friend, the active Dato Seri Shahidan Bin Kassim, member of Parliament of Malaysia and former Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, has been unanimously elected as Chairman of the TOPIC Council. Shahidan also sits in the 39-member ICAPP Standing Committee, representing the United Malays National Organization or UMNO. We wish to point out that according to an Asian Development Bank report, tourism growth in Asia is the highest in the world, with China, Japan and Thailand emerging as the top tourist destinations. In the Philippines, the Department of Tourism stated that international tourist arrivals in a good number of Philippine islands reached 6.8 million, a 15% increase from last year’s 5.9 million. The Department attributed the growth to the aggressive tourism marketing promotions, improved air connectivity, enhanced relations with other countries, and the international community’s growing recognition of our country’s sustainable tourism programs. Indeed, as pointed out by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), a U.N. specialized agency,tourism plays a crucial role in providing a better quality of life, building a competitive economy, and fostering sustainable development. The WTO also underscored that tourism generates revenue, provides business opportunities, creates employment, curbs rural flight migration, and cultivates a sense of pride among communities. Regretfully, we were unable to join our ICAPP friends and colleagues in the Terengganu conference as we were in the tiny island Palau Republic to address the First Ladies’ and Women Leaders’ Summit, organized and co-hosted by the Seoul- and New York-based Universal Peace Federation (UPF) and the Government of Palau, led by the dynamic President Thomas Remengesau Jr. and his active First Lady Debbie Remengesau, and by the UPF International President, the New Yorker Thomas Walsh. In this perhaps first Summit of First Ladies, we expressed the hope that the world will eventually see the emergence of an active influential global association of First Ladies, actively supporting their husbands, the Presidents or Prime Ministers, in the international community. We instead sent our long-time Special Assistant, AldwinRequejo, who also serves in the International Committee of the ICAPP Youth Wing and who has been with us since we founded and launched ICAPP in Manila in the year 2000, to speak at the Terengganu assembly and attend the ICAPP Standing Committee and other-related meetings. ICAPP has since enlarged to more than 300 ruling, opposition and independent political parties in the Asian region. In Palau, my wife Gina, who previously served as two-term congresswoman and twice President of the Association of Women Legislators in the Philippine House of Representatives, also addressed the First Ladies and women leaders from the Asia Pacific region, together with Filipina businesswoman and philanthropist Tetta Agustin, and her French husband Christian Baverey. Christian’s French grandfather was a much-heralded industrialist in France who invented the Zenith automobile carbonator in 1906 which became famous the world over. Christian and Tetta keep a yacht in the south of France and contribute to charities in the Philippines and have kept their charm and humility. They have a young daughter Tosca who is a successfulentrepreneur in South America and Portugal. The last time we and wife Gina visited Palau was some 30 years ago, when we officially represented then President Cory Aquino at the inauguration of then Palau’s President NgiratkelEtpison in the midst of a mild Pacific storm. We were then a younger congressman and acting chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Philippine House of Representatives. At the time, Palau’s population was at 15,000. Today, the population is less than 18,000. We could only surmise that the sons and daughters of Palau are prone to migrate to Hawaii, the U.S. mainland, or Australia and for perhaps the lure, glitter and unlimited opportunities in the vast world beyond. Palau reminded us of the old Hollywood movie “South Pacific” and the unforgettable profile of Bali Hai, or Makana Mountain on Kauai’s north shore where, tourists say, the last sunset in the United States takes place each evening. We, the old and young, remember the name Bali Hai from that movie in which the pyramid-shaped mountain represented a mystical distant island that remains in the memory of the old movie goers, and even the young when the South Pacific is hopefully shown again.