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The Role of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community in Overcoming the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is described as circumstances often interchangeably in social and medical contexts as non-boundary spread and directly affected a wide range of human life and a non-traditional security threat. The pandemic has had adverse consequences on the economy, and health and psychology have suffered. In 2020, ASEAN held an extraordinary summit on COVID-19 to accelerate resilience to the pandemic as a regional response; however, a solid commitment and comprehensive foundation are critical focal points for dealing with infectious diseases. Therefore, ASEAN member states should create a permanent mechanism to deal with current and future pandemics by providing a strategic long-term plan, an annual work plan, effective monitoring systems, and quality assurance by strengthening the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community’s role as an open and dynamic entity within the ASEAN Community. Doctrinal research based on normative legal and conceptual approaches was conducted as methods for this study.


Introduction
The coronavirus (COVs) or novel β coronavirus  was declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) to be a global pandemic disease. 1 Pandemic describes as circumstances often interchangeably social and medical contexts historically by an epidemiologist. 2 In the modern approach, pandemics spread across 1 World Health Organizaztion (WHO), 'WHO Director-General's Opening Remarks at the Media Briefing on COVID-19', WHO (2020) <https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/ who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19-11-march-2020>. accessed 10 June 2021.
2 JM Last, A Dictionary of Epidemiology. [3], See Also David M. Morens, Gregory K. Folkers, Anthony S. Fauci, 'What Is a Pandemic?', (2009), The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Vol. 200, Issue 7, October, 1018-1021(Oxford University Press, 2 nd ed, 1988. [1018]. ASEAN members chose similar strategies for dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak in implementing movement restriction and social distancing. 8 Even though the states' elaborate the strategies, it is found slightly different, particularly in the period length and intensity due to their national policy. The ASEAN special summit on COVID-19 was also a regional strategy to accelerate resilience to the pandemic. The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) is one of the pillars of the organization recognized as an open and dynamic entity that focuses on regarding education, health, children, women, and labour sectors for ASEAN citizens. There are four critical elements of ASCC: to promote a people-oriented community, to concern the social impact of economic integration, to enhance environmental sustainability, and to strengthen the foundation of regional social cohesion. 9 This paper aims to identify the factors that can be used permanently to deal with the pandemic. The measures taken now can be regarded as a transient response.
The study reviews the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in ASEAN countries, then examines the response from a regional perspective and the ASCC role of the occurrence in the region. It also assesses what has been done over the two years of the pandemic by shared situational awareness that reflects ASEAN as a peopleoriented organization.
Doctrinal research based on normative legal and conceptual approaches was conducted for this study. Despite the merits of these approaches, this article opts for different theories and doctrines that reflect the role of ASEAN as an intergovernmental and people-oriented organization in its efforts to eradicate the COVID-19 pandemic. The study's primary data comes from legal documents such as treaties, international agreements, acts, case law, and court opinions that are relevant to the topic. Secondary data was collected from the literature, including 8 Shafiah F Muhibat,  books, national and international journals, and other academic information in relevant issues of the articles. There were no time constraints on the date of the secondary material; however, the newest information took precedence.
The research examined the regional response to the pandemic. First, it assessed a two-year pandemic by shared situational awareness, which showed ASEAN to be a people-oriented organization. The next step was to analyse the dynamic role of ASCC and its legal framework, strategies, and implementation of the ASEAN health regional mechanism. By strengthening the ASCC's role and other possible international cooperation and coordination public health emergency system. Aside from conventional national security characteristics relating to sovereignty, territory, and military threats, 16 NTS established a new approach to dealing with threats that are non-military in nature. 17 NTS defined emergency circumstances as arising from non-military causes, such as natural disasters, food scarcity, human and drug trafficking, slavery, climate change, and infectious disease. In contrast, it will endanger people's wellbeing 18 . There are five main characters of NTS provided by Desker; 19 however, based on the nature of the NTS, it could also be divided into three main approaches: scope, impact, and response. The content of activities regarding the NTS should be transnational in character. 20 In comparison, the effects of the NTS threat cannot be prevented entirely by states due to the rapid spread of the disease. Furthermore, the state shall respond to and address the situation by strengthening regional and multilateral cooperation because the municipal act of the state is no longer sufficient to address the problem. 21

Infectious Diseases as Non-Traditional Security Threats
The COVID-19 pandemic is a global infectious threat and an unconventional security concern, particularly in southeast Asia. 22 The significant impact of the disease outbreak imposes a threat to human life, socio-economic balance, community behaviour, and the uncertain future to come.

Impact of COVID-19 for ASEAN
In total, the ASEAN population is estimated at approximately 661.5 million people. 23 ASEAN is regarded as the third most populous region worldwide, and it has the fourth-largest economy after China, the USA, and India. As expected, the COVID outbreak created a crash and crisis in the global economy within a year.
According to data from World Bank, the pandemic caused the annual international GDP resilience to plummet beyond the limit on (minus) -3.59% in 2020. 24 Despite ASEAN's rapid economic growth, the GDP disparity among its members could create structural problems in facing emergency circumstances such as disease outbreaks, which has been proven in how ASEAN members have dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the national health sector and economics, since ASEAN member states have applied massive restrictions and physical distancing to prevent virus transmission. Viral transmission occurs among humans in a widespread and rapid manner. The virus has infected more than 7 million people in the ASEAN region, with a death toll of more than 147 thousand people from its first detection in late 2019 through the end of July 2021. 25 Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the ten members of ASEAN shared similar standard features of fast economic growth as presented by Asian Development Bank in 2019 ( Figure 1). However, during COVID-19, the ten members each experienced an economic slowdown, which is reflected in their GDP's plunge into negative growth as seen in Figure 2. Moreover, slow trade recovery became inevitable for ASEAN 26 when China and the USA, the top two trading partners of ASEAN countries, experienced a similarly challenging situation. On the other hand, trade among ASEAN members only contributes 25% in total, 27 Therefore, it is difficult to quickly achieve a rebounding regional economy by increasing business with either internal or external trade partners.

ASEAN and AMC Response to COVID-19
A fast and effective response is required for dealing with the rapidly evolving and social distancing. 34 Domestic measures taken by the government are mainly based on a national strategy to minimize the impact of the threat. However, the AMS considered a lockdown policy at a federal or local level to stop the pandemic in a short time so that economic growth could continue. 35 On the other hand, for instance, the Indonesian government decided to implement massive rapid testing and social distancing methods with less movement restriction to maintain economic stability. 36 In terms of regional economic response, ASEAN continues prioritize maintaining trade and investment. This is seen in ASEAN's securing of regional supply chains with external partners using a non-tariff barrier policy to avoid

ASEAN as an Intergovernmental and People-Oriented Organization
ASEAN is an intergovernmental organization that was established based on the principles of "sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, non-interference, consensus and unity in diversity," as indicated in the preamble to the 2007 ASEAN charter, 40 For this reason, ASEAN is recognized as a state-centric organization despite strong criticisms from ASEAN members and external states 41 . Consequently, the principle of non-interference in the regional organization takes precedence and limits political connectivity among ASEAN states. External actors contribute a significant role in organizational policy. 42 The ASEAN character, as reflected in the terms "ASEAN way" or "one southeast Asia," serves as a community-building idea of collective identity for constructing, necessary for health crisis framework to protect human wellbeing. 45 The pandemic emphasises the urgency to justify and, like a wake-up call, to find new ways and mechanisms of cooperating to tackle the upcoming public health threat.
A primary consideration of the cooperation idea is on a regional basis, followed by a broader scope of cooperation with the international community.
Regional alliances determine balance and empower all members, posing internal and external threats to the region. 46 ASEAN refers to dominant regionalism in Southeast Asia. Therefore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN's response could be seen to describe how the ten members dealt with the outbreak virus. In terms of the pandemic, although regional responses of ASEAN had already been taken seriously to anticipate its impacts, as shown by the Declaration of the Special ASCC is one of three pillars of the ASEAN Community designed to represent ASEAN people's social and cultural interests. At the same time, the region is moving into economic integration and globalisation. The community›s role is to promote across ASEAN a high quality of life, equal rights and access, human rights, social and economic welfare, health, disasters, and climate change. The ASCC is known as the most adaptive institution on the ASEAN pillars due to its regional and international relations. The ASCC set up the commitment of ASEAN as a peopleoriented organization that identified humans as subjects, not as objects. There are four critical elements of ASCC: promoting a people-oriented community, concern for the social impact of economic integration, enhancing environmental sustainability, and strengthening the foundation of regional social cohesion can be seen as a laboratory illustrating how to strengthen international or regional cooperation instruments to tackle the public health hazard.
The ASCC can be considered an agency that initiated regional cooperation for NTS, including health security. Therefore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, ASCC should urge the ten member states to establish permanent mechanisms for current and future pandemic situations. To establish the collaboration, a strong political will among AMC is a critical requirement for ensuring a successful longterm collaboration. Therefore, they must develop an understanding of shared responsibility on transparency, accountability, trust, and fairness of the institution.
Thus, a strategic long-term plan, annual work plan, effective monitoring system, and quality assuranc 50 need to be created due to the establishment of ASCC to face future disastrous health circumstances in the region.

COVID-19 is defined as a global infectious threat that has been demonstrated
to be an unconventional security concern, particularly in southeast Asia. The significant impact of the disease outbreak imposes a threat to human life, socioeconomic balance, community behaviour, and the uncertain future to come. Dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, ASEAN and its ten members set up two types of response, regional and national measures. On a national level, AMC established different responses to handle the spread of the virus. There are four types of action for dealing with the pandemic internally: national lockdown, local lockdown, massive rapid testing, and social distancing. On the other hand, the regional response of ASEAN remains to prioritise secure regional health and stability according to the Declaration of the Special ASEAN Summit on Coronavirus Disease 2019, which was signed by the head of state AMC. The new approach to ASEAN regionalism on regional health mechanisms, especially on ASEAN ASCC. In terms of strengthening ASCC, AMC should create a permanent mechanism for pandemic management by providing a strategic long-term plan, annual work plan, effective monitoring system, and quality assurance. Consequently, the community affirms ASEAN member states' collaboration by intensifying multi-sectoral cooperation and cultivating regional governance of ASEAN as a rule-based organization as inherent in the ASEAN Charter 2008.