YouSaid · the spoken record

General ROMULO

lines on the record: 103
first: 1946-09-24
most recent: 1951-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Looking upon their respective merits, one was moved to make the candid observation that there was certainly a far greater measure of sincerity in that Power which, having the bomb, was prepared to lose an enormous advantage under the terms of its own proposal so as to establish an international authority with adequate powers of inspection and control. On the other hand, there could be grave doubts regarding the sincerity of any Power which, not being in possession of the bomb, desired merely to bind the hands of its possessor while leaving its own free to discover the secret of its manufacture behind the screen of an international convention and an ineffectual system of control and inspection. Negotiations were at a standstill.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The one Power which at present was in full possession of the secret of the atomic bomb ad generously agreed to surrender its monopoly on the sole condition that there must first be established a system of international inspection and control. That reasonable proposal, which was nothing less than an act of supreme renunciation, had met with the counter-proposal that all existing atomic weapons should first be outlawed and destroyed before any plan of establishing a control organ with limited powers of inspection could be considered at all. Those two utterly contradictory proposals spoke for themselves.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“That grievous incident had served to dramatize the danger that was inherent in a situation wherein the United Nations had assumed responsibility for resolving conflicts while possessing no real authority to implement its decisions. Yet that deficiency sprang not from the Charter itself, since the latter provided measures of implementation as clearly and adequately as it set forth functions and objectives. It sprang rather from the habit of pursuing the line of least resistance leading to the partial and half-hearted application of a fundamental law; for, as it was easier to recommend a course of action than to resolve upon its execution, so had it been easier, for instance, to observe Article B9 than to apply Article A3 of the Charter. On the question of atomic energy, the Philippine representative found the stalemate complete.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“It might be that the small nations, in using their moral power wisely, putting all the weight of their combined influence against war, might yet tip the balance on the side of peace. One of the saddest chapters in the United Nations record of the past three years or more, was that which recounted the long and fruitless efforts to devise a universally acceptable formula for the organization of a United Nations police force, the regulation of armaments, and the control of atomic energy. The Security Council, charged with the task of drawing up plans in these three vital fields, had admitted the futility of its endeavours up to the present time. The absence of a United Nations police force had but recently resulted in a tragedy that had shocked the conscience of the world.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The conscience of the world deserved a stronger voice than that which had spoken for it during the past three years. He wished that the small nations, speaking in unison, might be that voice. The mute millions, the common people of the world, expendable in war, forgotten in peace, cried out for a true and steadfast champion; the small nations, acting in concert, could be the advocate of their cause and the guardians of their welfare. The great Powers, their hands tied by the inexorable demands of power politics, had been unable to make the peace. The sum total of their achievements was a political stalemate, a precarious balance between the possibility of peace and the prospect of war.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Less involved than the great Powers in the snares of the grim struggle for the political and economic mastery of the world, the small nations were in a better position to represent the true will and the real interests of mankind. The Philippine delegation called upon the small nations to close their ranks and present a solid front against any attempt to undermine the peace. The past three years had witnessed the growth, within the United Nations, of a healthy tendency on the part of the small countries to act in conformity with those objectives. The time had come for them to assert themselves more completely, to oppose any scheme or manoeuvre which would serve the interests of any single State or group of States at the expense of others, to act for the common good whenever the occasion demanded or the opportunity arose.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“The Philippine delegation was calling upon the great Powers to make a fresh and determined effort not only to resolve their present quarrels without recourse to arms but to find some means whereby they could live in peace long enough to give mankind a chance to build, through the United Nations, stronger safeguards for the security and well-being of all. It made this plea for their sake as much as for that of the small nations. War would solve nothing; it could only destroy everything of value. Such was the destructive power of modern weapons that to lose the peace at the present time would be to risk losing all. The small nations, for their part, could help to avert war by pooling their strength and wielding their collective influence as a third force dedicated to the cause of peace.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“No new formula for peace was needed. One was contained in the Charter, in which nations pledged «to... live together in peace... to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest... » They possessed not only the formula but the rules and the procedures to make it work. It was the resolution, the will to implement it, that was lacking.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“War was on the march in Asia; it chafed angrily under the uneasy truce in Palestine; it stalked with iron tread the continent of Europe. The General Assembly was meeting under its shadow and could not ignore it, any more than it could ignore a time-bomb ticking away at its feet. Even as representatives deliberated on the problem of peace, some of the great Powers were arming and girding for war. The General Assembly had no power to impose peace. But it did have the moral authority to demand it. General Romulo was sure he was speaking not only for his own nation but for the people of every other country as well when he said that they did not want war, that they considered it to be neither necessary nor inevitable and that they believed that the Powers directly concerned could avert it if they willed to do so.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“Inadequate as its efforts had often proved to be, hampered by indifference and sometimes by a deliberate intent to thwart its efforts, the United Nations yet remained mankind’s chief and perhaps last hope for universal peace, freedom and security. It was an experience at once humbling and inspiring to realize that the United Nations represented, at the moment, the only force that could stand between the peoples of the world and the catastrophe that threatened to engulf them. General Romulo expressed the hope that this thought might guide and sustain them at the beginning of that crucial session of the General Assembly. He said that war was the great over-riding problem. The danger was no longer remote or hypothetical. It was real, and it grew with every passing hour.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“They involved the fate of every living man, woman and child as well as of generations yet unborn. There was something supremely ironic and yet touching in the way in which events had persisted in demonstrating the world’s need for the United Nations. Every international problem that had defied solution by individual States had brought before the United Nations, as to a court of last appeal — the problems of atomic energy, Greece, Iran, Egypt, South Africa, Korea, Indonesia, Kashmir, Palestine, Czechoslovakia, the former Italian colonies; and perhaps, before the adjournment of the session, the gravest and most difficult problem of all would come before it as well: the quarrel of the great Powers over Germany.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“General ROMULO stated that, whereas for the past several weeks the city of Berlin had been the focus of men’s fears, at its opening and for the duration of the session of the General Assembly, the city of Paris would be the centre of men’s hopes. The meeting coincided with a turning point in history. The United Nations was called upon to help decide the momentous issues of the present day: whether there would be war or peace; whether men would live in greater freedom or under increasing regimentation; whether nations would eventually unite into a single community of peoples under a world charter, or divide permanently into armed and hostile camps governed only by the predatory laws of the jungle. Those, in essence, were the problems that confronted the peoples of the world.”
1948-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 3 (1948)
“We must not be dismayed. With patience and good will, with faith in the common purpose which has brought us together, and with a firm determination to exhaust the possibilities of agreement upon the issues before us, we shall overcome the tortured anxieties of the present and set at rest the fear of universal disaster which beleaguers our harassed world.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“This tendency to bring all the woes of mankind, as it were, to the doors of the United Nations has been deplored by some as an unrealistic and dangerous practice. The United Nations, we have been reminded, is not equipped to provide healing for all the maladies of the world. We of the Philippines take a different view and consider this tendency to be a healthy one. For we know that the danger is not in the tendency itself, but that it lies rather in two directions: first, in refusing to give strength and authority to the United Nations anti its organs to accomplish the tasks which it is called upon, under the Charter, to perform; and secondly, in failing to harness the Organization to those tasks which the Charter authorizes it to perform, and for which it provides the means. The work is difficult and long, but we are not dismayed.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“There exists the alternative method of peace, which has been used by the United States once in the Philippines, and again by other metropolitan Powers in other places; it can and should he applied everywhere. As we begin the work of the present session, we cannot but be struck once again by the great number and serious nature of the problems which have been brought before the General Assembly. This fact can produce a feeling of helplessness or it can create a determination to do all that can reasonably be done with the means at hand. For our agenda is the most eloquent proof of the desperate desire of all nations for social progress and economic survival in a condition of freedom, in a world at peace.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Whether it be in Asia or in Africa, it will strike root and burgeon forth with a vitality which economic exploitation, political control or military domination will eventually find impossible to repress. The examples of the voluntary renunciation of power by certain States have, in recent years, become far too numerous not to have left an indelible impression on the minds of the peoples that are yet to be free. It now remains to be seen whether the enlightened spirit of our Charter and the compelling example of certain metropolitan Powers will lead to the peaceful liquidation of the antiquated system of colonies, or whether the blind determination to preserve that system will result, as it has most unfortunately resulted in some regions, in bloodshed and violence.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“And only as recently as yesterday on this floor we heard the solemn pledge of the United States of America to submit the Korean problem to the present session of the General Assembly and to offer suggestions as to how Korean independence might soon be attained. We derive comfort from these concrete evidences of the irresistible advance of freedom, and we pay tribute to both the United States and the United Kingdom for recognizing abroad, in the lives of other peoples, the justice and validity of the self-same principles that have made those nations great at home and honoured among nations. The seed of freedom, hidden from the sun and rain, may lie quiescent for decades or a hundred years, but it never dies.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The records will show very clearly the reluctance to which I have already referred. They will show how pathetic, in a sense, and yet how dangerous, too, is the delusion under which some Powers continue to labour when in this enlightened age they insist on refusing to recognize the right of the non-self-governing peoples to freedom and independence. But, fortunately, there are a number of bright spots which relieve the gloomy political picture in the non-self-governing areas. There is the establishment of the Dominions of India and Pakistan. We have before us a proposal to terminate the mandate over Palestine and to recognize its independence. There is the prospect of increased self-government for Burma and Ceylon.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It is to be regretted, however, that by the same policy which resulted in more liberal provisions being made for Trust Territories than for Non-Self-Governing Territories in the Charter, there still persists a certain disinclination to promote the political progress of the Non-Self-Governing Territories which the Charter calls “a sacred trust”. I would recommend to each and every Member of the General Assembly a careful perusal of the records of the meetings of the Ad Hoc Committee, so ably led by my good friend and distinguished colleague of New Zealand, Sir Carl Berendsen, which was created by the General Assembly last year in order to examine the Secretary-General’s summary of the reports transmitted by the metropolitan Powers under Article 73e of the Charter. You will find the reading of its records a sobering experience.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We can only express the hope that there, as well as in Asia and the Far East, it will be possible to fashion effective modes of economic co-operation and assistance between peoples entirely within the framework of the United Nations. The Philippine delegation rejoices also over the establishment of the trusteeship system and the Trusteeship Council and the evident desire of the administering Powers to observe the obligations they have contracted under the Charter and under the terms of their respective agreements with the United Nations.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The work of that Commission had reached a far more advanced stage than that of the Commission for Asia and the Far East, and was in fact ready to move forward from planning to execution. Unfortunately, the Commission for Europe is at the moment in a state of suspended animation. For all practical purposes, its work has been taken over by another body outside the United Nations. What fate awaits the Commission for Asia? We may have an answer by the time that Commission meets in the Philippines, at Baguio, before the end of the year. In the meantime, there has been another significant development in this field. An Economic Commission for Latin America has been established.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The Philippine delegation therefore earnestly calls upon the Members of this body to consider, if not at this session, then at an early moment, measures to be taken with respect to Member States which fail or refuse to observe the mandates of the General Assembly. After long preparation and protracted delays, the Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East was finally established this year. Preliminary studies of the economic problems of Asia have been completed, and further surveys are in prospect. While we rejoice over the establishment of this Commission and are happy over the preparatory work that it has already accomplished, we are sobered at the same time by the experience of the Economic Commission for Europe.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“I have in mind -such decisions as that taken on the complaint of India against the Union of South Africa; that calling on the metropolitan Powers to convoke conferences of representatives of non-self-governing peoples, and other decisions, which have not met with the degree of faithful observance that we all have a right to expect. Those who criticize the abuse of the veto in the Security Council should pause to consider that the act of preventing any decision at all is no more to be condemned than the act of ignoring or impugning a decision that has been made. Indeed, the latter act is in a moral sense the more censurable of the two.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“On the other hand, its effectiveness is greatly diminished by the fact that its decisions have not the binding force of the decisions of the Security Council, and by the further fact that, unlike the latter, it is not in continuous session. The United States delegation has proposed to remedy the second of these defects through the establishment of an interim committee on peace and security. The Philippine delegation warmly supports this proposal, not only because it can easily be effected within the framework of the Charter, but because it would facilitate the work of the Assembly by reducing the accumulation of new matters at each session. Even when this has been done, however, the problem of giving added force to the decisions and recommendations of the General Assembly still remains.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“This, then, is the heart of the problem: to enable the Security Council, to perform its vital functions under the Charter by methods of commensurate effectiveness which would require the modification of the veto; or, by keeping the veto in its present form, to condemn the Security Council to complete futility and make virtually necessary those subterfuges and evasions which are almost certain to wreck the United Nations Organization itself. The inability of the Security Council to act decisively on a number of vital matters has, inversely, increased the burden of responsibility which rests upon the Assembly and the importance of the tasks which await it. The Assembly is strong in that it is highly responsive to world opinion and is not hamstrung by the veto.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“In recent months there has been growing concern over various plans and proposals which, in effect, would result in bypassing the United Nations. Right-thinking people have reason to deplore such a tendency. But not one among us can justly condemn such a tendency, if, by our own deliberate tactics of obstruction, through the exercise of the veto or by other means, we are determined to block every reasonable action which the urgency of a given problem so clearly requires. A stalemate, after all, solves nothing. The problem remains, and if there are methods of solving it other than by or through the United Nations, alternative methods will be employed which the veto cannot prevent.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“We heard with satisfaction the Secretary of State of the United States affirm before the Assembly yesterday that the United States would be willing to consider measures for the liberalization of the voting procedure in the Security Council, specifically, by eliminating the requirement of unanimity with respect to matters arising under Chapter VI of the Charter, and such matters as applications for membership. These are concrete proposals which merit careful consideration by all our delegations. Let us re-examine the question in all its aspects. Let the other permanent members come forward with their own proposals and give the world some token of their desire to help remedy this difficult situation.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“In accordance with these views, my Government would support every reasonable proposal to limit or regulate the exercise of the veto, if possible by measures voluntarily accepted by the permanent members, or if necessary by appropriate amendments to Article 27 of the Charter. It used to be said of the opposition to the veto that it was instigated by and solely in the interest of the smaller Powers. Although this may have been true in the beginning, in San Francisco and then later, last year in New York, it is not so any more. The permanent members themselves are no longer unanimous on the principle of unanimity.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It can only spring from an inward discipline which is strong enough to dissuade the permanent members from acting on the impulse of naked self-interest, inspired on the one hand by the foreknowledge of substantial majorities, or on the other by the certainty of defeat. Such discipline cannot grow so long as each of the permanent members knows that it has always close at hand the invincible weapon that is the veto. Modify the veto, place it beyond reach and use, except for extraordinary and justifiable occasions, and you open the road towards the methods of compromise and adjustment which constitute the discipline of which I have spoken.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“The main objection to the veto is not that it has been used too often by one of the permanent members. It is rather that the veto is a weapon which any one of the five permanent members may wield, as we have seen it wielded by one other permanent member, whenever such action suits its own conception of its national interest. From this example it is obvious that the veto does not encourage unanimity; it encourages rather the adoption of rigid attitudes and unalterable positions and is bound to result in a condition of alternating challenge and defiance. The principle of unanimity cannot be established by fiat.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“On the Greek question, on the incidents in the Corfu Channel, on the proposals for atomic control, on the Dutch-Indonesian conflict, even on the question of admitting new Members to the United Nations, certain permanent members of the Security Council have seen fit to exercise their privilege of the, veto to prevent decisions calculated to promote international co-operation for the maintenance of peace. In opposing the principle of the veto, my Government is moved by no desire to question the well-merited preponderance of the five permanent Members in the councils of the United Nations. But my country does deny the right of any one of these five States to condemn so important an organ of the United Nations as the Security Council to a condition of permanent paralysis.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It is not an exaggeration to affirm that the entire structure of the United Nations Organization must at some time crumble and collapse under the continued sledgehammer blows of the veto. One can make this affirmation — even those among us who have been fighting the Veto since San Francisco—without excitement or passion. Quite calmly and deliberately we say that the world must choose between the United Nations and the veto in its present form. We cannot have both. We may soon have neither. Let the record speak for itself: twenty-two vetoes in the space of two years, twenty of them by only one of the permanent members of the Security Council. Through crisis after crisis the Security Council has been stalemated into virtual inaction.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“It has become clear that we are now faced not simply with the disorganization which normally follows war, but with a calculated confusion which, in the past, has usually led to war. Fortunately, the situation is not without its redeeming aspects. For the long and heavy agenda of the current session accurately reflects the universal anxiety over the deterioration of the social, economic and political conditions of humanity, the general desire to hasten the improvement of these conditions, and, what is even more significant, man’s abiding faith in the United Nations as the chosen instrument for effecting such improvement. It would be impossible to dwell on the threat of failure which hangs over the Organization without reference to the veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“Men everywhere await with anxiety the balm of the peace that is still to be made. Peace, which in due course should have been the fruit of our common victory, continues to lie beyond our reach. What men feel today is something compounded of impatience and fear — impatience with the slow progress that has been achieved in promoting confidence and co-operation among nations, and fear of the final disaster that would attend the failure of our present efforts. One year ago, or two years ago, it was much easier to minimize the social and economic disorganization of many countries and the political conflicts and rivalries between various States by considering these conditions as the inevitable after- math of war. Today we can no longer seek solace in that attitude.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“I bring to this Assembly the greetings and cordial felicitations of His Excellency, the President of the Philippines, General Manuel Roxas. We are confronted during the present session of the General Assembly with a multitude of grave problems. It is not necessary, I am sure, to inspire in us the sense of earnest dedication which the occasion requires. We have arrived at a crucial moment in the life of the United Nations and in the history of mankind. The task before us is both an opportunity and a challenge, and the manner in which this Assembly will meet it may well prove to be the measure of our success in tiding humanity over the engulfing crisis toward better times. In the face of the insecurity and violence which afflict so many parts of the' world today, it would be difficult to dissemble and most unwise to deceive ourselves.”
1947-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 2 (1947)
“By nature, and by the experience of suffering, the Philippine Republic is dedicated to the ideals that first brought together our fifty-one nations and to the programme of the United Nations, conceived as an instrument of military victory and perpetuated as an instrument to win the peace. It won the fight. It can win the peace. Ours is the solemn responsibility to grant or to deny humanity its right to live. May we who are gathered here today prove equal to this responsibility and to the sovereign promise of the United Nations.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“We of the Philippine Republic reject cynicism as the underground refuge of the cowardly and a repudiation of the dignity of human life. In this past war, it was a source of both grief and honour to me to know the simple, honest soldier, brown or black or white, who gave all he had to give — his life — because he believed that aggression is an arch crime against mankind. We dare not be less honest than he. Under the falling bombs men open their hearts. They speak with honesty in the face of death. We are all under attack, although it may seem impossible to conceive. Danger is in the skies, and every man on the face of the earth who knows enough to be afraid, walks in fear. Now is the time for an honest opening of hearts and minds. Frank discussion is safer than hidden bitterness. It is the only tiling that can save us now.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“We must plan for all the tomorrows, we must build peace forever, for one world, indivisible. We have not long in which to build. The Nagasaki blast is the story foretold in Revelation of the breaking of the sixth seal. Let us remember that Bible prophecy: “When the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, shall hide themselves in the dens and the rocks of the mountains.” We have seen that prophecy brought to pass in lands we thought civilized and safe. We saw it happen in England, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and in the Philippines. The Philippine Republic is the world’s newest nation. We are taking our place in a world, that has not made up its mind to live or die. We ask to live. We fought to live.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“What of those who survived, whose ranks are beyond number, who are dying from within, spiritually, as surely as men die from within after the shock of atomic bombs? They are the sufferers of war’s residue of hatred, suspicion and cynicism. They are not here; we must speak for them. Around us, and making merry at our expense, are the money-changers, the hired destroyers of hope, the professional haters of humanity, the rented jesters of those who deny the survival rights of the common man. Their voices are loud. Their power is great. But if destruction comes, their cries will be no louder than our own, and their children and ours will die together. The dead, the living and the yet unborn are our conscience. We speak for them. Our responsibility is not for this hour, nor for this day, nor for tomorrow.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“It is necessary in order to enlarge the area of agreement in the Security Council, and to enable that body to perform the vital functions that have been entrusted to it. It is possible provided we shall see more and more, from now on, of that spirit of tolerance and good will which has given such an auspicious colour to our deliberations. Peace is not made with words. Peace is won by numbers. The fifty-one nations represented here are not our sum total. In summing up our forces, we must not overlook the roll-call of the dead, the twenty million men of all nations who died in the past cataclysm within the space of six years. And they are not all. Watching with us are the uncounted millions of mute and unrepresented peoples of Asia and Africa. They too ask the right to live. There are more. There will be more.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“In the League of Nations, you will recall, a system was tried under which each Member could, by its own choice, will itself out of an agreement. There was absolute equality there, but the results were negative. In the United Nations Security Council, only five nations enjoy this privilege, with the difference that there can be no agreement at all except with their unanimous consent. There has been some improvement. Yet this is not democracy, any more than the absolute voting equality between big nations and small is true democracy. Until we are able to establish a world government based upon proportional representation, there will be valid argument for the veto. It is the contention of the Philippine delegation that a compromise between these two positions is not only necessary, but possible.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“We have agreed, thanks to the gracious forbearance of the Soviet delegation, to place upon the agenda the various proposals to modify the Charter provision on the veto privilege of the big Powers in the Security Council. No issue will probably be more passionately debated by this Assembly than the question of the veto. There are, as we have seen, powerful arguments on both sides. The Philippine Republic is one of the small nations, and our sympathies are entirely in favour of limiting this privilege to the extent that it will not continually obstruct our efforts towards peaceful agreement and fruitful co-operation. At the same time, we have no illusions regarding the practicability, at the present moment, of establising absolute voting equality among the nations of the world.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“Only in this way can these media of information become instrumental in the maintenance of peace. It is our hope that the holding of such a conference will be approved by the General Assembly and that the appropriate agreements may soon be drawn up — possibly in collaboration with the Human Rights Commission of the Economic and Social Council — with a view to the elimination of the barriers of censorship which encourage malicious propaganda and breed distrust. Distrust is the one thing that we can least afford to cultivate at this stage of our work. I must express our extreme gratification with the atmosphere of tolerance and good will which has so far pervaded the deliberations of this Assembly.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“It has been asked, for instance, whether the press, the radio and the movies are equal to the responsibilities of freedom. The question is not born of spite, for these media of information can be controlled, and not only by the police of a despotic State; they can be controlled by powerful elements even in a State avowedly democratic. They can be polluted not only by prejudice but by motives of pecuniary profit and political advantage. The press, the radio and the movies, to be free, must not only be able to operate without fetters; they must be inwardly free of corrupting motives and self-limiting prejudices. The proposed press conference shall concern itself with these two aspects of freedom of information. The freedom of inquiry and transmission must be safeguarded by compensating guarantees of honesty and responsibility.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“The Philippine delegation regards as inadequate the provisions of the Charter regarding the implementation of the principles enunciated in Chapter XI, and will propose in due time the formation of a Regional Conference for Non-Self-Governing Peoples. The millions who would not remain silent any longer will be voiceless no more; they will have a voice, and their voice, whenever raised in the name of freedom, shall be heard. The voice that is raised in the name of freedom must be free. Because we of the Philippine delegation sincerely believe that freedom of information is essential to the maintenance of peace, we have proposed the holding of an international press conference to discuss methods of ensuring the unimpeded transmission of news throughout the world. We are aware of the difficulties that stand in the way of this objective.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“During that period the Philippines became independent. India is today on the road to freedom. We feel confident that the situation in Indonesia and Indo-China will continue to improve under the influence of this declaration as a statement of principle which carries with it the force of world opinion. Moreover, the organization of the Trusteeship Council is now happily in prospect. Although the success of the trusteeship system will depend primarily upon the good will and sense of responsibility of the administering authority, it is encouraging to realize that the treatment of Trust Territories will henceforth be subject to the scrutiny of the conscience of the world. Let no nation, however powerful, repudiate its responsibility with respect to Trust Territories under the Charter.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“In the conference held last year in San Francisco, it was our privilege to help write into the Charter of the United Nations the principle that any nation which assumes responsibilities for the administration of Non-Self-Governing Territories accepts “as a sacred trust” the obligation, among others, to ensure the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of those territories, and to develop self-government, take due account of their political aspirations, and assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions. This was a noble declaration, marking a new era in the history of colonization. We realize very well that its force is largely moral. But there is much, during the past year, to encourage the hope that it was more than a declaration of good intentions.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“We trust that this General Assembly and the various other instrumentalities and agencies of the United Nations will regard the discovery and application of the appropriate remedies to these conditions as one of their gravest concerns. There can be no peace in a world that is permanently divided between nations that produce raw materials and nations that process these materials into finished products. This is not the sort of economic interdependence among the nations which we all envision. The interdependence we seek must be a balanced and reciprocal relationship. The political implications of industrialization are no mystery to anyone. Industrialization is the handmaiden not only of economic progress but of political liberty.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“What they need today is not reconstruction only, but construction as well, not merely the restitution of a destroyed economy but the institution of a new and progressive one. It is customary to deprecate the low standard of living and political backwardness of the peoples of the East as if these were a matter of fate or predestination. We, of course, know better. We know that many of the countries of Asia are enormously rich in natural resources and that these resources, if properly exploited and developed in the interests of the native peoples, would elevate the standards of living there to levels as high as those of the peoples of the West.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)
“We have two worlds today because one of them has fallen under the economic and political domination of the other. The line that separates these two worlds is not the vertical wall of racial or cultural dissimilarity, but the horizontal barrier of economic and political inequality. The Economic and Social Council has, during its recent session, devoted a great deal of attention to the economic reconstruction of devastated areas. The Philippine Republic took part in the study of this problem. We urged then, and we urge today, that the mere restoration of what has been destroyed does not answer the basic needs of the Philippines and of the other countries of Asia and the Far East. Most of the peoples in those parts of the world have for many centuries lived at submarginal economic levels.”
1946-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 1 (1946)