HOUSE Deputy Minority Leader and Mamamayang Liberal (ML) Party-list Representative Leila M. de Lima joined two former foreign ministers from Malaysia and Thailand, along with three former United Nations (UN) experts on Myanmar and founding members of the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), in issuing a joint statement rejecting the military junta’s planned “sham” elections and urging a complete strategic reset in the country.
According to the joint statement, with the junta election slated to begin on December 28, 2025, the upcoming 47th Summit on October 26-28, 2025 is the last chance of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to act.
The signatories urged the ASEAN to launch a new strategy on Myanmar, pushing for a “democratic, durable and inclusive approach, as envisioned by the people.”
“After more than four years of handwringing, dissembling and futile attempts to revive its dead-on-arrival Five-Point Consensus (5PC), ASEAN must concede that it has totally failed the Myanmar people. It has been fooled, out maneuvered and humiliated by the junta at every turn. But the true calamity of ASEAN’s failure is its real-world consequences. It has abandoned thousands of civilians to slaughter, surrendered the political initiative to powers outside its bloc, enabled transnational crime to flourish and greenlit future coups among member states,” the joint statement read.
“ASEAN must outright reject it [junta’s planned election]. Anything short of this would be a callous betrayal of the Myanmar people and a dangerous reward to violent authoritarianism throughout the region…An emboldened junta is ramping up its targeted killings of civilians, including children, confident in its total impunity,” it added.
Other signatories of the joint statement are Dato’ Sri Saifuddin Abdullah, former Minister of Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs and current member of the House of Representatives of Malaysia; Khun Kasit Piromya, former Minister of the Foreign Affairs of Thailand; and three former UN experts on Myanmar—Marzuki Darusman, Yanghee Lee and Chris Sidoti.
The joint statement stressed that “genuine and credible nationwide elections can only take place in Myanmar once an authentic and inclusive peace agreement has been secured, all fighting has stopped, all political prisoners have been released, all legitimate political parties can participate, and independent international election monitors are granted access—the only conditions in which a free and fair election is possible.”
De Lima and other signatories also stated, “The people of Myanmar feel utterly abandoned. For ASEAN to have any hope of reversing the damage that its years of failure have inflicted on both Myanmar and itself, it must act now. Otherwise, how will ASEAN ever face the people of Myanmar?”
According to the joint statement, Malaysia as current ASEAN Chair and Philippines as incoming Chair must seize this opportunity to champion a new policy on Myanmar that includes the following ASEAN actions:
– Intensifying diplomatic efforts to secure an immediate end to all attacks, particularly airstrikes, the immediate release of all political prisoners, and a total countrywide ceasefire supported and enforced by ASEAN and the UN Security Council and monitored by international observers;
– Expanding coordination with key stakeholders including the National Unity Government (NUG), the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw (CRPH), Ethnic Resistance Organizations (EROs), Consultative Councils, Federal Units, minority communities, including those who have been forced to leave Myanmar, and civil society, as well as with neighboring countries and UN agencies, to support the urgent, impartial and unobstructed delivery of humanitarian and material assistance by all available means to all communities in need in Myanmar, to ensure aid is not weaponized, and to secure scaled-up financial support to bolster recovery and reconstruction efforts and to address the broader humanitarian crisis. Full and unimpeded access must be granted to humanitarian agencies and actors;
– Augmenting recent Stakeholder Engagement Meetings on Myanmar by creating a formal ASEAN platform to support the key stakeholders listed above in their negotiation of a new federal democratic constitution for Myanmar in accordance with the will and interests of the people and inclusive of all communities including minorities and those among them forced to leave Myanmar. As a core condition, the Myanmar military, in whatever form it exists, must be made permanently subordinate to a democratically elected civilian government and parliament;
– Delegitimize the junta and confirm a series of graduating punitive steps that ASEAN will take if the junta refuses to abide by ASEAN decisions, fails to end its attacks on civilians and to release political prisoners, or continues to withhold and manipulate access to humanitarian assistance;
– Supporting accountability for international crimes committed in Myanmar and cooperating with international and national courts and tribunals and accountability mechanisms to secure justice, including courts exercising universal jurisdiction.
It can be recalled that De Lima recently spearheaded the filing of House Resolution No. 342 urging the ASEAN to take proactive role in ending the crisis in Myanmar.
Aside from De Lima, among the signatories of HR 342 are fellow Liberal Party (LP) lawmakers Reps. Edgar Erice (2nd District, Caloocan City), Arlene “Kaka” Bag-ao (Lone District, Dinagat Islands) and Cielo Krisel Lagman (1st District, Albay), Akbayan Partylist Reps. Jose Manuel “Chel” Diokno, Percival Cendaña and Dadah Kiram Ismula, fellow House Members from the minority bloc Reps. Elijah San Fernando (Kamanggagawa Partylist) and Iris Marie Demesa Montes (4K Partylist), Makabayan bloc Reps. Antonio Tinio (ACT Teachers Partylist), Sarah Jane Elago (Gabriela Partylist) and Renee Louise Co (Kabataan Partylist), as well as House Members from the majority bloc Reps. Bienvenido Abante Jr. (6th District, Manila), Rufus Rodriguez (2nd District, Cagayan de Oro), Roman Romulo (Lone District, Pasig City), and Mark Anthony Santos (Lone District, Las Piñas City).
De Lima has been consistent in appealing to the Philippine government to help in ending the atrocities in Myanmar, which should be of paramount concern to the international community.
As former Secretary of Justice, De Lima proposed that the Philippines, along with fellow ASEAN member-states, should send rescue ships to help the Rohingya Muslims or “boat people” still stranded at sea, and save their lives.
In 2019, as Senator, she filed Senate Resolution 158 urging the DFA to reconsider its position on all UN resolutions addressing the human rights abuses against minorities in Myanmar.
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