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Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
November 18, 2025 | 8:05am
This handout picture taken and released on October 27, 2022 by the Indonesian ministry of foreign affairs shows the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) countries attending the Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting (SAFMM) at ASEAN secretariat general building, in Jakarta. Southeast Asian foreign ministers met in Jakarta to discuss the political crisis in Myanmar ahead of November's ASEAN leaders' summit, without a representative from the country's military junta.
AFP / Handout / Indonesian Foreign Ministry
MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines will prioritize continuity as ASEAN's incoming chair in dealing with the Myanmar crisis, Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro said Monday, November 17, but left open whether the bloc will send observers to the junta's December elections widely dismissed as a sham.
Lazaro, recently designated by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as special envoy to Myanmar, said the Philippines aims to build on current ASEAN chair Malaysia's engagements with Myanmar rather than start from scratch.
"Malaysia had about 117 engagements, and we are of the view that we cannot do everything that was done by Malaysia, or even the past chairs, starting from that," Lazaro said at a press conference. "It is our view, it is the Philippine position, that we can just be working on what has been established, and to continue."
Lazaro told reporters that any deployment of observers to Myanmar's elections on December 28 would require an ASEAN-wide decision.
The junta has scheduled the first phase of voting for December 28, with a second phase in January. But 121 constituencies, including 56 townships, will be excluded from the polls due to ongoing fighting between military forces and resistance groups that control large swaths of the country.
Since the February 2021 coup, the junta has dissolved dozens of political parties and imprisoned an estimated 30,000 political prisoners.
Lazaro said ASEAN is also considering whether to appoint a longer-term special envoy to Myanmar, rather than rotating the position with each annual chairship. "Perhaps all this will be discussed, particularly the possibility of having a longer-term special envoy during the chairship of the Philippines," she said.
Malaysia's chairmanship ends December 31, leaving little time for the 11 ASEAN members to reach consensus on observers before the elections begin.
Lazaro said some working group meetings will continue under Malaysia's watch, but the Philippines will take up the Myanmar problem in earnest during the January retreat where the bloc's foreign ministers will hammer out their strategy.
