ASEAN Beat | Diplomacy | Southeast Asia

Philippines’ Lazaro Dismisses Criticisms Over ASEAN’s ‘Informal Meeting’ With Myanmar FM

Last week, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar said that agreeing to the meeting was a sign of the ASEAN special envoy’s “timidity and poor judgment.”

Ma. Theresa Lazaro, Philippine foreign secretary and current ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar, poses with her ASEAN counterparts following an “informal meeting” in Bangkok, Thailand, Jul. 12, 2026.

The Philippines has dismissed a strong criticism from an expert advisory group that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s recent engagement with Myanmar’s foreign minister undermined the bloc’s peace efforts, stating that it continues to adhere to the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus plan for managing the conflict.

As this year’s chair of ASEAN, the Philippines hosted an “informal meeting” with Myanmar Foreign Minister Tin Maung Swe in Bangkok on July 12, the first such engagement since the coup of 2021.

Following the meeting, the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M), an independent group of international experts, said that ASEAN’s decision to hold the meeting had “rewarded the Myanmar military junta’s bloodshed and recalcitrance” and undermined the Five-Point Consensus.

Agreed in April 2021, two months after Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup, the Consensus called for an immediate cessation of violence, inclusive dialogue involving “all parties” to the country’s conflict, and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid. However, in the five years since, the military has done very little to implement the most important elements of the Consensus.

In a statement authored by former Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah, ex-Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, and three former U.N. experts on Myanmar, SAC-M argued that Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, the current ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar, had brought “a disastrous combination of timidity and poor judgment to her role” since taking over at the start of 2026.

SAC-M accused Lazaro of agreeing to the meeting “without extracting a single concession from junta leader and accused war criminal Min Aung Hlaing.”

“ASEAN’s failure on Myanmar while the country burns and the junta entrenches itself poses serious questions about the bloc’s durability,” SAC-M stated. It finished by calling for a “reset” at next week’s ASEAN meetings........

© The Diplomat