From the Asian Renaissance, by Anwar Ibrahim, page 21:

The progenitors and early protagonists of the Asian Renaissance such as Jose Rizal, Muhammad Iqbal and Rabindranath Tagore, were transmitters par excellence of the humanistic tradition. They not only fought for humanitarian ideals but also cultivated in their persona the life of the mind, the arts and imagination. They were able to transcend cultural specificity to inhabit the realm of universal ideas. They sought to reinvigorate the Asian self, fractured and deformed by colonialism. "Humanity will not be redeemed," Rizal wrote, "while reason is not free, while faith would want to impose itself against facts, while whims are laws and while there are nations that subjugate the others." -- Anwar Ibrahim

Mr. President:

Myths are the stuff of great literature, and among the world’s men of letter, the favorite myth is that of Prometheus, celebrated in the immortal poem of Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Percy Byron Shelley’s modern version, Prometheus Unbound.

In the Greek legend, the god Prometheus created man out of clay and water. Prometheus was so enamored of mankind that he stole fire from Mt. Olympus and taught man all the useful arts and sciences, forging such a splendid civilization that Zeus himself became insecure and was greatly angered. By his orders, Prometheus, accused of treason for his encompassing love of mankind, was chained to a mountain peak in the Caucasus where his liver was exposed to daily torture by a vulture. Though rooted in Greek myths, Prometheus has become the universal symbol of modern humanism and the eternal search for freedom and excellence.

It is for that reason, Mr. President, that the founders of nations and liberators from foreign tyranny are endowed with Promethean qualities. A man like Jose Rizal was sentenced to die of treason. But the act of treason was nothing more than the love of country, the love of mankind, that actuated him to devote all his life to the emancipation of his people from foreign and homegrown tyranny.

Mr. President, today in Kuala Lumpur, a disciple of Jose Rizal, Anwar Ibrahim, is also figuratively chained to a prison in Kuala Lumpur. He, too committed the sin of Prometheus, seeking to free the Malaysian people from the enslavement of the Internal Security Act and other draconian policies that deny the most elementary liberties to a great people. Mr. Ibrahim is the author of an acclaimed book, Asian Renaissance, which calls on Asia to lead the world in a new spiritual transformation, based on the great religions that are Asia’s most precious heritage. He is accused of treason for trying to bring intellectual freedom to his people.

Mr. President, last September 20, heavily armed Malaysian federal police stormed the residence of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, forcibly broke down the door, and arrested him. The news of his arrest stunned and shocked the international community which knew Anwar as a highly able, intellectually gifted second man of Malaysia, and an exponent of greater freedom for his countrymen, the anointed successor to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. The arrest also came as a shock to many people in Malaysia who saw in Anwar Ibrahim their best hope for a broader freedom, long denied them under the Internal Security Act. Anwar’s arrest and detention provoked a backlash and drew an unprecedented crowd of demonstrators, officially estimated at 30,000 to 50,000 people, to the Merdeka Square in the center of Kuala Lumpur, the biggest demonstration yet seen in the history of that city.

Mr. President, the explanation issued at that time by the Malaysian government was vague, evasive and skimpy to say the least. Prime Minister Mahathir was quoted by the news media as saying that Anwar was "morally unfit to lead Malaysia." A little later, ten criminal charges ranging from sexual mischief to corruption were filed in an ordinary court against Anwar. Upon arraignment Anwar denied all the charges. Two associates of the Deputy Prime Minister, who had previously testified to the charge of being sodomized by Anwar, repudiated their testimony which they said was taken from them under duress. Together with Anwar, 16 of his supporters have been placed under arrest and detention, although seven have already been released for lack of evidence.

Mr. President, when Anwar Ibrahim appeared in court to be arraigned, he showed signs of physical injury, including a black eye on his left eye and bruises on his neck and arms. According to Anwar, while he was blindfolded, the police, his captors, beat him up unconscious and denied him medical attention for five days. A Malaysian doctor who examined him later testified that Anwar did suffer from physical injuries, the apparent result of police brutality. The situation was not helped by the statement made later by Prime Minister Mahathir to the effect that the injuries of Anwar could have been self-inflicted or that he probably provoked the police into harming him.

Mr. President, all these news reports out of Kuala Lumpur have shocked the international community, partly because the Malaysian government of Prime Minister Mahathir enjoys a high regard in the world precisely because of his country’s political stability and its remarkable economic achievements. Malaysia is one of the most widely admired economic miracles in Southeast Asia. In two decades, the incidence of mass poverty in Malaysia has been brought down to 7 percent, as compared for example, to 35 per cent in the Philippines. One of the visible signs of Malaysia’s economic success is that it is a significant investor in the Philippines and the other member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a leader in banking and the steel industry. Although beset by the Asian financial crisis, Malaysia gave one billion dollars as its own contribution to the international bail-out of Indonesia through the International Monetary Fund.

Malaysia of course has broken ranks among the nations hard-hit by the Asian financial crisis, clamping foreign exchange controls to insulate the economy from the shocks of short-term currency flows, in open defiance of the prescriptions of the IMF. Internationally, Prime Minister Mahathir is the most outspoken and acerbic spokesman of the developing nations of the South against the highly developed North, taking an ideological viewpoint that has not endeared him to the leaders of the West, including the United States and the European Union. In a sense therefore the global attention now focused on Malaysia because of the Anwar incident flatters the leadership of Prime Minister Mahathir; many other small nations bereft of civil liberties do not compel as much attention.

Mr. President, last Saturday I felt obliged to cancel some important weekend engagements in Bulacan to accommodate an urgent request of the Malaysian Ambassador in Manila, the Honorable Dato Abdul Aziz Mohamed, for an audience. He had no access to President Estrada, who was in Bacolod City, or to Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, who was abroad on an official mission. The ambassador communicated his concern over what he thought were intemperate reactions in the Philippines to the recent developments in Malaysia. He appealed to Filipino leaders for a deeper understanding of the Malaysian government and its actions in the case of Anwar Ibrahim. I promised the ambassador that I would try to state the side of his government as fully and as fairly as I could to the President, the Senate and the Filipino people.

Mr. President, it seems Prime Minister Mahathir and his government suspect his erstwhile deputy and heir apparent of harboring a "secret agenda" to promote social unrest, destabilize Malaysia and topple the Prime Minister by covert and violent means probably in collusion with unnamed quarters abroad. When I pressed him to provide any evidence of such a secret agenda and conspiracy, the ambassador was not so forthcoming.

But Ambassador Abdul Aziz did say Malaysia had undergone a painful, traumatic experience of racial riots in the year 1969, when ethnic Malays and Chinese fought each other and burned each other’s homes and shops. The ambassador was still in college when that happened; he watched the burning of Kuala Lumpur from a hilltop.

In general, Malaysians were alarmed by the recent riots in Jakarta and other Indonesian cities when roving bands looted and burned the homes and stores of ethnic Chinese and raped and killed some of their women. I asked Ambassador Aziz if he detected any signs of communal discord in the current unrest in Malaysia, which was obviously precipitated by the arrest of Anwar. He answered in the negative. But he said if the unrest continues in its present scale, the racial harmony in Malaysia which remains fragile can be unsettled and the old dormant passions could be ignited again.

This is also the reason his government insists on keeping the Internal Security Act of ISA, which the outgoing colonial power used to good effect in fighting and eliminating the communist insurgency that had once threatened the security of Malaysia in an earlier decade. The ISA is also helpful in maintaining a tight control on Malaysia’s border in the face of an exodus of foreign migrants to Malaysia, most of them Indonesians, but also including Filipinos, Bangladeshi, Indians, Sri Lankans and other nationalities. There is a nightmare in Kuala Lumpur that if Indonesia collapses, Malaysia can be swamped with a tidal wave of immigration, and that is the reason it scrounged for a billion dollars of financial assistance to Indonesia in spite of its own financial crisis to help stabilize that great country with its population of 202 million. The ambassador stressed to me that in taking the actions that it did against Anwar Ibrahim, the government of Malaysia was doing nothing more than "to defend its national survival."

Mr. President, I have stated the position of the Malaysian government in the case of Anwar Ibrahim because it is only fair to do so. The Senate of the Philippines has arrived at its present level of eminence and moral authority because of its reputation for both fearlessness and fairness. Of course, I conveyed forcefully to the Malaysian envoy a strong feeling in this Senate about the lack of proper regard for the human rights of Mr. Anwar Ibrahim. I asked if in fact it will not help defuse the tensions in Malaysia if the Prime Minister contemplates the noble and humanitarian act of releasing Mr. Anwar Ibrahim from detention.

The ambassador said that under Malaysian law, the former Deputy Prime Minister can be held for sixty days even without formal charges and a court trial, renewable for another sixty days at the discretion of the Minister of Home Affairs, a position concurrently held by the Prime Minister. He said that Anwar would be released when in the opinion of that august personality he no longer threatened the security of Malaysia. In any case the matter is now in court, where it properly belongs, and the whole world will be watching the quality of Malaysian justice in the trial of Anwar Ibrahim. In a sense, therefore, Prime Minister Mahathir and his government are also on trial in Kuala Lumpur.

Is Anwar Ibrahim at the head of an international conspiracy to topple the Mahathir government in Kuala Lumpur? This is a familiar syndrome. The insecurities of Prime Minister Mahathir, it seems to me, make him see a conspiracy under every bed. The arbitrary arrest of Anwar and 16 of his supporters is a symptom of the political paranoia that haunts the Prime Minister’s office in Kuala Lumpur. Because of the mushrooming popular support for Anwar’s libertarian cause, the establishment trembles with fear and panic.

Mr. President, in the meantime our own President, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, had publicly deplored the detention of Anwar Ibrahim and has expressed his deep concern over the fate of the Malaysian leader, who is well-known friend of the Filipino people and some of its leaders like President Estrada himself. President Estrada moreover has acknowledged the role of Anwar as a leading disciple of the Filipino national hero, Jose Rizal, whom Anwar sees as a leading exemplar of the new Asian Renaissance, in the same league with Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi, Mohamad Iqbal and Sun Yat Sen. "He knows more of the life and ideas of Jose Rizal than I do," President Estrada said of Anwar, with a charming humility.

Well, in this regard, may I announce that some close associates of Anwar Ibrahim have arrived in Manila today from Singapore. This delegation includes the well-known scholar and Rizalist Mr. M. Rajaratnam. They will represent Ibrahim in a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Knights of Rizal to be attended by the Knights of the Grand Cross of Rizal, of whom Anwar Ibrahim is one. This honor was conferred upon him by the Knights of Rizal after he inspired, organized and sponsored an international conference on Jose Rizal, on the centennial of his martyrdom, in Kuala Lumpur, the first such conclave of world scholars on Rizal to be held outside the Philippines. The title Knight of Rizal Grand Cross has been bestowed on only a few other foreigners, including His Majesty King Carlos of Spain and Nobel Peace Prize winner Henry Kissinger of the United States.

This information was relayed to me by Mr. Rogelio Quiambao, supreme head of the Knights of Rizal who assured me that his was a private visit in which the Philippine Government was not involved. The delegation was scheduled to proceed from the Ninoy Aquino International Airport directly to the building of the Knights of Rizal on Roxas Boulevard, this noon, where they were to address a luncheon meeting of the Knights of Rizal Supreme Council.

When I inquired about the arrangements for their security, Mr. Quiambao said the members of the Knights of Rizal in the Western Police District, one of the biggest chapters of the movement, had volunteered to protect the delegation while it is in Manila.

Mr. President, Anwar Ibrahim is the most articulate spokesman of the vision for a Southeast Asian community based on democracy and human dignity, to encompass all the ten countries of the region, from Hanoi to Rangoon. He believes Southeast Asia can be the birthplace of a modern Asian Renaissance anchored to the classical ideas of such heroes as Jose Rizal, Mahatma Gandhi, Sun Yat Sen, and Mohamad Iqbal.

In his acclaimed book, Asian Renaissance, published in 1996, Anwar deplores the propensity in some Asian countries to denigrate human rights and civil liberties as ideas uniquely possessed by the West and alien to the culture of Asia. He believes with our own Senate President, Marcelo B. Fernan, a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, that human rights are indivisible, interdependent and universal, transcending all national and cultural boundaries. To hold otherwise is to offend the memories of such pioneers of human freedom in Asia as Jose Rizal, the whole corpus of whose writings may be summed up in one phrase, "the dignity of man.".

Mr. President, on Dec. 10, 1998, the whole world will commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights. There will be a world congress convened by the United Nations in Geneva as the focal point of the golden jubilee celebration. Both Malaysia and the Philippines are signatories to this great covenant, in effect a Bill of Rights for all of humanity.

The declaration condemns all state practices that infringe the sacred rights of the individual person and strongly proclaims that the freedom of speech and of the press are inalienable rights throughout the world.

It is therefore meet and proper that as the world commemorates the golden jubilee of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, we make common cause with the international community in expressing our profound concern over the dubious treatment given Anwar Ibrahim by his own government in Kuala Lumpur.

We take note of the fact that Mr. Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, has communicate his own concern over the fate of Mr. Ibrahim to the Malaysian government. President Habibie of Indonesia has announced in Jakarta that he was canceling a planned visit to Malaysia as a sign of protest. The official student movement in Jakarta has also strongly condemned Anwar’s arrest. And right here in our own country, spontaneous citizens’ movements have sprung up to demand justice for Anwar, justice for all. The Friends of Freedom, Friends of Anwar movement has organized its first student chapters in the Ateneo de Manila, UP Los Banos and Bulacan State University in Malolos. Anwar is an honorably alumnus of the Ateneo de Manila, the alma mater of Jose Rizal. The movement has chosen a Tagalog name, "Kasama ni Anwar sa Kalayaan." The Knights of Rizal has passed a Resolution over the detention of Anwar under law that has become a completely anachronistic in a country professing adherence to the UN Declaration of Human Rights. The principal bar council and the leading women’s groups in Kuala Lumpur have also called for the immediate repeal of the Internal Security Act.

Mr. President, the text of a Senate Resolution expressing the concern of this body over the injustice done to Anwar Ibrahim has been circulated. Resolution No. 240, is jointly authored by the majority leader, Sen. Franklin M. Drilon and myself. May I ask for your unanimous approval of this resolution.

Mr. President, we are also commemorating this year the supreme achievement of the Filipino people who rose in a revolution against the colonial power in 1896 and founded in 1898 the first constitutional republic in the history of Asia. In the constitution promulgated by the Malolos Congress on Jan. 23, 1899, marking the birth of the Filipino nation-state, the Bill of Rights accounted for no less than one third of all its provisions. This event impelled Apolinario Mabini to say that the torch of human liberty lighted in Malolos should radiate its light to the rest of Southeast Asia.

President Joseph Ejercito Estrada in expressing his concern over the safety and human rights of Anwar Ibrahim in Malaysia, is merely being faithful to the charge left by Mabini to future generations. It is also in that spirit that Senator Drilon and I invite the Senate to adopt unanimously Senate Resolution 240 which expresses our own concern not only for the fate of one man, Anwar Ibrahim, but for the cause of democracy and liberty in Southeast Asia, bringing the gift of fire and freedom, we have a duty to extend our support, and the support of the first government in Asia to be consciously founded on the dignity of man, namely, the Republic of the Philippines.

Mr. President, in closing, permit me to make the following appeal to the Prime Minister of Malaysia:

Mr. Prime Minister, we acknowledge Malaysia is a kindred nation and can only wish its people well.

Further we acknowledge you as one of the foremost statesmen of our own region. Your leadership has wrought an economic miracle in Malaysia in which, as a Malay people, we also vicariously take pride. But the time has now come for your economic prosperity to be translated into a greater political freedom for your twenty-two million citizens.

You have already done a lot to dismantle the legacy of feudalism in Malaysia. Please build on this success by repealing the Internal Security Act and release from your jailed not only Anwar Ibrahim but also all other persons arbitrarily detained under the ISA.

Please set Anwar Ibrahim free!

Thank you, Mr. President.