An engaging way of enhancing Philippine-british ties
British Ambassador Asif Ahmad talks about how Philippine-British ties have grown in recent years, as well as the exciting activities that they have lined up for this year’s celebration of PhilippineBritish Friendship Week, which, he shares, became a series of events that will span seven months starting last September.
“If you go back to how we have been in the last two to three years, this is a real sign of progress because we, as a government (in the previous one as well as the current one), identify the Philippines as a country where we want to do extraordinary things, with more effort diplomatically, more engagement, and what you see now in terms of what we are doing in the Philippine-British Friendship Week, and beyond, is a very public manifestation of that,” expounds Ambassador Ahmad regarding the current state of Philippine-British relations.
What this means, he shares, is that the UK has picked the Philippines as a country that is progressive economically, which has ties in international affairs, climate change, and all the other things that any country, which has a global outlook would be interested in. “We have to spread our resources according to what our ambition is. Upon my arrival here, the grading of the ambassador was upgraded by one. We have more funds so we could recruit more staff both from the UK and the Philippines, and that has been matched by two high-profile visits last year. We were visited by two British secretaries last year, and the last time that we had a visitor of that level was back in 1997. That is huge, and the fact that our Prime Minister is in regular contact with the Philippine president about the ebola crisis, the Philippine’s role in international government, and so on. These sort of things can only be possible when you’ve reached a level of maturity in a relationship, which I think genuinely exists.”
Going strong, becoming progressive As such, Ambassador Ahmad is delighted for all the wonderful developments that continue to serve as a testament of this, whether in trade, tourism, and international issues. He cites the intended acquisition of Emperador, Inc. of Scotch whisky-maker Whyte & Mackay for P31.7B as proof of exciting things happening in PhilippineBritish commerce, as the latter continues to be the biggest investor in the Philippines in terms of the European Union. “We are very grateful that that has happened (the acquisition), but if you dig deeper, when you look into any of the major Filipino companies, you’ll find that there’s a lot of British shareholders in these conglomerates,” reveals Ambassador Ahmad.
He adds that they’ve also found ways to enhance Philippine-British ties in spite of the geographical distance of the Philippines and the UK, citing a recent trip that they’ve organized for Filipino delegates. The roadshow hosted by UK Trade and Investment in Singapore showcased the Philippines’ more than 50 public- private partnership (PPP) projects to the British business community aimed to encourage partnership with foreign businesses through PPP, an initiative of the Aquino administration. The business seminar shone light to various opportunities under the PPP program and other infrastructure projects, which include roads, railways, airports, water and health care.
“Singapore is a major hub for British businesses —from infrastructure, oil, and finance, many are based in Singapore, so we are using our regional footprint to engage with the Philippines. For the first time ever, a foreign government has taken a Philippine delegation of ministers and people not to its home country but to another country. But that is just a glimpse of how we work. We work in a different way.” This is something that Ambassador Ahmad is very proud about.
Even when it comes to the topic of human rights, Philippine-British ties remain strong, with continued support from both countries for issues concerning the LGBT community to international tensions, and the Bangsamoro.
“The Bangsamoro issue takes us back to 2008 when we began our engagement, and we have used our very real example of what happened to Northern Ireland and very recently, to Scotland, the devolution. All these experiences have been shared and some congressmen will be visiting the UK to update their knowledge on what has been going on, and as a member of the International Contact Group, we are very fortunate to have been able to sit with the negotiators all the way through —even just a few days ago. We are talking about transitional justice, how we are going back to all the ancient rights and wrongs and find a way to resolve it.” Ambassador Ahmad went on a trip to the south just recently to discuss this issue. “The Bangsamoro Basic Law is now in Congress and we have some building blocks in place. So this is a good time for me to go and see for myself what is going on, and how we can help in moving forward. This is a very important issue for the Philippines and indeed the world,” he adds.
This is GREAT Britain With so many significant engagements between the Philippines and Britain, Ambassador Ahmad looks forward to another celebration of the Philippine-British Friendship Week, dubbed as This is GREAT Britain. “We ran last year’s campaign on a people-to-people front wherein the direct impact of that was a great boost in Filipino tourists going to the UK. We saw an increase of 24 percent in the number of people who actually got a visa and traveled to the UK.”
This year, Ambassador Ahmad is not just keen on replicating the success of This is GREAT Britain. He wants to surpass it through a broad range of activities that it has lined up.
While the 20th of October is the actual celebration of the Philippine-British Friendship Day, Ambassador Ahmad jokes that they’ve “cheated” a little bit, as they didn’t only stretch the celebration to a week, but to seven months ( last year’s celebration ran for five months). This year the celebration started a month early, with the GREAT launch held last September 3. It showcased regular screenings of National Theatre Live as well as the launch of the GREAT British Shopping Contest.
“If you need a headline for that, it’s just more of everything—more food, more fashion, more music, more theatre performances. We have also doubled the number of companies participating this year.” In terms of new events that the public should watch out for, Ambassador Ahmad says that there will be the GREAT Ball on October 25, which will cap off the Philippine-British Friendship Week. Aside from being a fun social event, the GREAT Ball is where the British Embassy will unveil a new set of GREAT British Education Ambassadors, as well as the celebration of 30 years of the Chevening Scholarship Program in the Philippines. Guests will be able to mingle with other people with an affinity to the UK, including those who studied there. “We want to make the UK a much stronger choice for Filipinos in terms of education. Last year, there were eight Filipinos who were granted with the Chevening Scholarship, and this year we are trying to make it to 30 as more British and Philippine businesses here are supporting it. That means, every year there’ll be 30 scholars who will be making their contribution to the Philippines on any subject of their choice.”
According to Ambassador Ahmad, slowly but surely there have been more Filipinos studying in the UK, but that is not enough, as they can do a lot more. “The challenge for the Philippines is to move from a history of catching up and just replicating, to joining us in being innovative entrepreneurs, develop your product, your invention, your ability to add value to something. There are limits to what you can do in a primary industry. Take food and agriculture, there’s a marketplace for agriculture but there’s a bigger marketplace if you are able to add value.”
Another interesting event that they are organizing is the Global Entrepreneurship Week, something that Prince Charles promotes as a concept in the UK. “We believe that real wealth generation and employment doesn’t just come from big companies but from small-scale enterprises. So what we’re doing is a focus on entrepreneurship. Last year, GoNegosyo joined as our partner. We will be working with them to talk to entrepreneurs on how they can finance themselves, how their inventions can be taken to market, how they can internationalize their business. We also like the fact that GoNegosyo engages a lot with young people, especially in schools.”
A step further To further broaden their reach, the British Embassy will be taking its celebration of This is GREAT Britain to Cebu, as it is an emerging market for British businesses.
“I hope what will happen is that as a result of our GREAT campaign, instead of a 24-percent increase, even more people will travel to the UK. There is one big myth that I want to break down completely: the perception that it is difficult and that we say ‘no’ to most visa applicants. Ninety percent of the people who apply for a visit visa to the UK and have a good reason, do get their visas. They get their visas comfortably and within the promised time scale, sometimes even earlier.”
Thus, Ambassador Ahmad and his team are looking forward to seeing everyone take part in the various activities that they have lined up until March of 2015 in the continued celebration of the This is GREAT Britain campaign.