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An important component of Philippine foreign policy
and the commitment to the United Nations (UN) is our participation
in UN peacekeeping missions. Participation underscores our fidelity
to peace and readiness to fulfill our international obligations.
Filipino troops and police officers—along with our Foreign Service
diplomats—have earned praises from the UN and host governments for
helping keep the peace in troubled regions and war-torn states.
The Philippine government’s
decision to send more than 300 troops to join United Nations
peacekeepers in the Golan Heights in Syria, our biggest overseas
deployment in over a decade, is a milestone. In his report to
Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo, Philippine Permanent
Representative to the UN Ambassador Hilario G. Davide Jr. said a
composite battalion of 336 Filipino peacekeepers would be deployed
in September to serve with the UN Disengagement Observer Force in
the Golan Heights.
A separate group of Filipino of
Filipino military observers is scheduled to support the UN Military
Observer Group in India and Pakistan, which is supervising the
ceasefire in the contested state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Secretary Romulo said the
missions to the Golan Heights and Kashmir were on the invitation of
the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. They are being carried
out under the UN Standby Arrangement System that the Philippines
formally entered into during the visit to Manila in 2008 of UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The Golan Heights deployment
marks the first time the Philippines will deploy a sizeable unit
since 2001, when it deployed more 600 peacekeepers to support the UN
Transitional Administration in East Timor. A Filipino Army general
headed the UN force in the country now known as Timor Leste. The
Philippines, it is important to note, enjoys strong relations with
Israel and Syria.
The Department of Foreign Affairs
says the UN created the Disengagement Observers Force as part of
diplomatic initiatives to ease the tensions that followed the 1973
Yom Kippur War where Israel successfully defended territory in the
Golan Heights seized from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War. The
Agreement on Disengagement the two sides signed in 1974 established
an area of separation and two equal zones of limited forces and
armaments to be supervised by a UN observer force.
The Philippine contingent will
replace a battalion of peacekeepers from Poland and will join more
than 1,000 peacekeepers from Austria, Canada, Croatia, Japan, India
and Poland stationed across the area of separation.
At the same time, three Filipino
officers will also soon join around 40 military observers from
Chile, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Korea, Sweden and Uruguay who are
serving the UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan.
The latest deployments raise our
stature as a troop-contributing member. Manila is the 30th largest
contributor of peacekeepers to the UN with 613 military and police
peacekeepers serving in eight UN missions in Afghanistan, Cote d’
Ivoire, Georgia, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and Timor Leste.
Quietly, our diplomats, troops
and police officers are winning praise all over the world for their
role in overseas nationbuilding and post-strife law enforcement.
Recently, the United Nations paid tribute to the 135 Filipino
peacekeepers serving in Liberia, awarding them medals for upholding
the UN values of integrity, professionalism and respect for the
people they serve and for their upholding stability in that country.
The Philippine deployment in Monrovia also underscores a growing
role of Filipinas in these missions. Nine women are serving with
distinction in Liberia, and more would be called to service.
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