PIMENTEL SAYS DIVERSITY AND EQUALITY AMONG CULTURAL GROUPS SHOULD BE RESPECTED

PHNOM PENH - Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said the diversity and equality among cultures in society should be fully respected if democracy is to flourish and benefit all citizens.

Addressing a government assembly on the occasion of the International Democracy Day at the National Assembly Palace in the Cambodian capital, Pimentel said there are walls that block some cultural minorities or ethnic groups in certain countries from enjoying the rights and privileges that ought to be guaranteed by their Constitution and laws.

He said this is true in the Philippines but such walls may soon crumble as they are becoming archaic and irrelevant under the light of democratic principles that are accepted universally.

"We simply cannot live in a world that is getting smaller by all accounts and not give people who might be dissimilar to us in looks or in customs and traditions but who, like us, are human beings the respect and care that we give selectively to others," Pimentel said.

The veteran parliamentarian warned that some groups or sectors in society merely invite disaster if they insist that they are racially superior to or ethnically cleaner or socially higher in status than others.

"Initially, the problem might appear to be just a dot in the map of the world but like a cancer virus, the germ of ethnic bias and racial discrimination could potentially bring about a global conflagration," he said.

He said the grim consequences of such racial bias were graphically illustrated in contemporary times in Serbia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar.

Pimentel underscored the role of political parties in influencing their members and the public towards building a cultural of pluralism and tolerance particularly in Asia.

He exhorted political parties to adopt platforms that are built on respect for the human rights of peoples regardless of race, creed, sex or social status.

Political parties, he added, should also adhere to the basic democratic principles of law and order, justice, peace and equal opportunities for all.

"If the platforms of the parties affirm the universal values of freedom, justice and peace, the equality of peoples regardless of race, creed, social status, sex or age, under the law and the Constitution, and the obligation to respect the human rights of all, there can be no other result but the strengthening of the foundations of democracy in the countries concerned," he said.

Pimentel, a member of the five-man Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, delivered his statement at the 2nd plenary session of the Cambodian Government Celebration of the International Democracy Day with the support of the United Nations Development-Legislative Assistance Project and the IPU.