ASEAN’s favourite habit: agreeing that it should cooperate

ASEAN has never lacked for statements about solidarity. What it has lacked, more often than not, is the habit of turning those statements into something sturdier than diplomatic wallpaper. That is why Philippine Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo’s call for member states to work together sounds both sensible and slightly wearying: sensible because the region needs coordination, wearying because the need has been obvious for years.

Manalo’s message, delivered in the context of Philippine foreign policy, was straightforward. ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, should act collectively rather than as a loose collection of states each waiting for the others to move first. That is the diplomatic version of telling a room full of adults to please stop pretending the fire drill is optional. The point is not controversial; the execution is where the trouble begins.

The bloc’s weakness is not a mystery. ASEAN is built on cooperation, yet it often behaves as if caution were a virtue in itself. Member states are comfortable with the language of partnership, less so with the discipline it demands. Manalo’s appeal fits neatly into that pattern: a reminder that regional diplomacy is supposed to produce more than polite communiqués and group photographs.

For the Philippines, the argument has a practical edge. A country that depends on regional stability has little interest in seeing ASEAN reduced to a ceremonial club. If the organisation is to matter, it has to show that it can coordinate positions and act with some consistency. Otherwise, it risks becoming what many institutions become when they are praised too often and tested too rarely: a venue for talking about unity while preserving every national reflex that prevents it.

There is no dramatic breakthrough here, and no reason to pretend otherwise. Manalo’s call is a familiar one because ASEAN keeps inviting it. The real question is whether the bloc wants to remain a modest forum for consensus or become something closer to a functioning regional actor. For now, the answer appears to be the usual one: everyone agrees cooperation is necessary, provided someone else does the cooperating first.

Written by Christiane Hofreiter christiane.hofreiter@alpineweekly.com