52ND NATIONAL DAY OF MALAYSIA RECEPTION, RIZAL BALLROOM, MAKATI SHANGRI-LA

The event started off with a speech from H.E Ambassador Dato’ Ahmad Rasidi Hazizi followed by a toast and the Philippines’ national anthem. In his speech, H.E Ambassador highlighted on the theme for this year’s National Day, “People First, Performance Now” which embodies the goal of the Hon. Prime Minister, Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Hji Abdul Razak to bring the nation towards greater unity and success as one “Bangsa Malaysia” or Malaysian people regardless of race, religion and creed with the spirit of “One Malaysia”. He touched on Malaysia’s achievements in the tourism industry where for the third consecutive year in 2008, Malaysia received the Best International Tourism Destination Award by Global Traveller magazine. H.E. Ambassador highlighted the fact that more than 22 million tourists had visited Malaysia in 2008, an increase of over 5.1 percent as compared to the previous year. He also highlighted that this year’s National Day is made even more special because of the 50^th Anniversary of Diplomatic Relation between Malaysia and the Republic of the Philippines. Through the years, Malaysia has remain supportive of the Philippines in various areas such as the development of the latter’s “Halal” industry, education, cooperatives, public administration, defence and security, capacity building through the Malaysian Technical Cooperation Programme (MTCP) and in the Southern Philippines’ peace process. He ended his speech with a toast and followed by Philippines’ national anthem.

             Hon. Secretary Romulo in his speech, congratulated Malaysia for fast becoming a modern and fully developed country after 52 years of independence. He expressed his confidence that Malaysia will undoubtedly gain its goal to become a fully developed nation by 2020. He also touched on the close bilateral relationship enjoyed by the two countries ever since the formal diplomatic relation was established 50 years ago. He also expressed his Government’s appreciation over Malaysia’s support in the Southern Philippines’ peace process. He remarked on the bilateral trade, where Malaysia is the Philippines’ 9^th largest trade partner. He also commented that Malaysia is one of the most viable contributors of the Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) in the Philippines with the active participation of Malaysia’s major corporations such as Maybank and PETRONAS. He also acknowledged the roles of H.E Ambassador and the Embassy of Malaysia in strengthening the bilateral ties between Malaysia and the Philippines. He ended his speech with a toast and followed by Malaysia’s national anthem.

       After the speeches, H.E Ambassador accompanied the Honourable Secretary Romulo and H.E. Archbishop Edward Joseph Adams, Dean of the Diplomatic Corps for the cake-cutting ceremony. Afterwards, all of the guests were invited to sample the various authentic Malaysian cuisines prepared for the event. In order to ensure the authenticity of the cuisines served, the Embassy had sought the assistance of a Malaysian chef based in Manila to oversee the food preparation. Among the Malaysian cuisines served are laksa lemak, chicken and beef sate with spicy peanut sauce, char kuey teow with seafood, Hainanese chicken rice, inche kabin chicken, roti canai with assorted yellow dhal curry, banana and jackfruit spring rolls, stuffed tofu, air batu campur and assorted Malaysian cakes.