Mr. President,

The Philippines aligns itself with the Statements made by Malaysia, on behalf of ASEAN, and by Algeria, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement.

We congratulate Her Excellency Ambassador Ms. Egriselda Gonzales López of El Salvador and His Excellency Ambassador Mitch Fifield of Australia for their well-deserved re-appointment as Co-Chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Group of the Revitalization of the Work of the General Assembly.

We appreciate today’s joint debate on the Revitalization, an important platform that both reaffirms the General Assembly’s pre-eminence in the UN system and provides focus on how to improve its work.

We also echo ASEAN’s appreciation of the important role of the Main Committees in complementing the work of the AHWG in revitalizing the General Assembly.

Mr. President,

Since 2015, the Philippines has actively engaged in the dialogue on Revitalization within the context of the UN reform agenda.

For this session, we welcome the focus on two themes, the “Strengthening the accountability, transparency and institutional memory of the Office of the President of the General Assembly” and the “Selection and appointment of the Secretary-General and other executive heads”:

• On strengthening the accountability, transparency and institutional memory of the Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA), the Philippines strongly supports this agenda and the increasing call of Member States to create a permanent core staff for the Office of the President. This will lower the costs of a new team of experts every 12 months. We also support the continuing request of the Office of the PGA for Member States “to discuss measures to close the gap between the number of tasks they request from the Presidents and the resources allocated to the Office.”

We commend the institutionalization of the PGA’s handover report since the 70th Session of the GA and recommend the continuation of the morning dialogues with the Permanent Missions as well as the practice of convening interactive dialogues with the candidates for the position of the President of the General Assembly.

• On the selection and appointment of the Secretary-General and other executive heads, resolution 75/325[1] must be implemented faithfully to ensure a transparent and inclusive selection process.

The Philippines therefore supports continuing timely informal dialogues and town hall meetings with the candidates. We further emphasize that the Secretary-General must be accorded independence in selecting senior officials, while adhering to the highest standards in these appointments, and ensuring equal and fair distribution on the basis of gender- and geographical balance. We also reiterate our support for the proposal to come up with a compendium of best practices and lessons learned on the selection and appointment process for the Secretary-General.

Mr. President,

With greater political will and stronger collaborative action of Member States, we hope to achieve a more ambitious, innovative and action-oriented resolution for the 77th Session.

The Philippines stands ready to help ensure the success of the Ad Hoc Working Group on its important task to revitalize the work of the UN General Assembly.

Thank you. END