Ramos-Shahani: Diplomat, UN servant and politician

By Harvey Stockwin

HONGKONG (JP): As the United States reiterates its objections to Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali being re-elected as United Nations secretary-general, and as President Bill Clinton rubs this point home by churlishly declining the traditional lunch with the Secretary-General when he visited the UN on Tuesday, the U.S. discourages any Asian candidates running for the top UN job.

A top U.S. diplomat at the UN says that the U.S. will respect the fact that Africa deserves another term even if Boutros-Ghali does not, and therefore look kindly on any African candidate. Maybe the Americans have someone in mind. Maybe the rest of the world, fed up with a U.S. that still wields a veto even though it owes the UN well over US$1 billion in unpaid dues, does not care so much any longer what the U.S. thinks.

Whatever it is, at least one Asian -- and ASEAN -- candidate is unlikely to be deterred. She may not have the wider recognition enjoyed by the UN High Commission on Refugees boss Ms Sadako Ogata, or the prestige of Irish President Mary Robinson. But as Philippine Senator Leticia Ramos-Shahani lobbies for herself both at home and now in New York, she looks very likely to take part in the upcoming UN secretary-general contest.

Born on Sept. 30th 1929, and speaking Spanish and French, she has an impressive track record of public service in the Philippine diplomatic corps, the United Nations itself, and, for the last decade, amidst the hurly burly of Philippine domestic politics.

After securing her first degree from Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and her M.A. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University in New York in 1954, Shahani won a doctorate at the University of Paris. She married an Indian writer and professor Ranji Shahani, by whom she had three children. Sadly, he died of cancer in 1968, and she has not remarried. One of her sons Ranjit Shahani is now a Congressman from her home province of Pangansinan.

Shahani's record with the United Nations goes back a long way to her earliest days in the Philippine diplomatic service. She first worked in New York as an attache to the Philippine Mission to the UN, serving as an adviser to the delegation way back in 1963-64. Subsequently, she was First Secretary to the Philippine Mission in 1969, and then Assistant Secretary for UN Affairs at the Foreign Ministry from 1972 to 1975.

Of course, it has not hurt Mrs. Shahani's career that she is the brother of current Philippine President Fidel Ramos, and that they were both cousins of long-ruling Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Gen. Fidel Ramos served as chief of the Philippine Constabulary (national police) before and after Marcos declared martial law in the Philippines in 1972. It is widely believed in the Philippines, perhaps unfairly, that Fidel was often instrumental in securing Mrs. Shahani's advancement, notably when she was appointed as the first Philippine Ambassador to serve in the communist world. That was from 1975 to 1978 when Shahani was Philippine Ambassador to Rumania, with additional accreditation to Hungary and East Germany. Later she was the Philippine Ambassador to Australia from 1978 to 1980.

But at least Mrs. Shahani distanced herself from the Marcos regime long before her brother finally broke with it, which enabled her to enjoy cordial relations with President Corazon Aquino after the Marcoses were ousted. From 1981 to 1986 Shahani was in Vienna as Assistant UN Secretary-General for Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs. In 1985 she was a UN Secretary-General for the first time -- of the World Conference in Nairobi to Review the UN Decade for Women.

With democracy restored in the Philippines, Mrs. Shahani turned to a career as a politician. She was first elected nationwide to the Philippine Senate in 1987, and is currently serving her third term as Senator. She is now chairperson of two Senate committees -- on Agriculture and Food, and Women and Family relations.