UN General Assembly
1993

and now "social dumping" - are being invoked to clothe in various guises policies of naked protectionism. Decisions on global finance continue to be made by a few, with the rest of the world standing by even though it is vitally affected. The burden of foreign debt continues to be a millstone round the necks of many developing countries, and the problem is often aggravated by decisions on interest rates and exchange rates in which those countries have no voice. The Philippines continues faithfully to fulfil its external financial obligations, regardless of the extent to which that policy holds back our economic growth, constitutes a burden on our people, and imposes a heavy domestic political cost on our leaders. But we wonder whether the world has tried hard enough to devise creative solutions to this economic plague upon the developing countries. After all, some nations have been favoured with decisive - even radical - measures to alleviate their foreign debt, such measures having become politically useful to the creditor countries. The ravages that the profligacy of man has wrought