UN General Assembly
2025

Now I give the floor, now I give the floor to Her Excellency Maria Teresa Lazaro, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines. Mr. President, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, at the closing of the San Francisco Conference in 1945, Filipino General Carlos P. Romulo declared the UN Charter as an achievement for all humanity. It is accomplishment, he said, that will embrace and protect us at the same time that it liberates the human spirit. Our faith in the United Nations Charter endures as the international community celebrates the 80th anniversary of the United Nations. United in purpose, we, the 193 member states of the United Nations, are stewards of this office, of this edifice. It counts on our courage to be equal to the task it bestows on us. The United Nations was born in the rubble of war. We embarked on a peace that works not only for the powers of that day, but also for all of humanity, for all time. We forge through the Charter a covenant of just and equitable peace.