As we approach the end of 2005, numerous world leaders converge into New York to join in the celebrations of the 60th. Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Time has elapsed since that January 10, 1946 milestone at London´s Westminister Central Hall, where 51 nations participated in the first Assembly, eager to erase the devasting effects of the just ended World War II.

I'm just a few months older than the General Assembly and at the time of the its commencement and more many years after, my young mind was not ready to comprehend its relevance or its limitations. Born in Manila 60 years ago, just as the war was about to end, my youth was blest with the good fortune to be in the right place to meet distinguished politicians and world leader, one of whom had a lot to do with the United Nations Charter (he was a signatary) and later President of the Fourth General Assembly and also President of the Security Council.

I'm referring to Carlos P. Rómulo, a Filipino who served under Gen Douglas MacArthur and later as Foreign Minisdter of the Republic of the Philippines under 3 Presidentes -ñ Quirino, Macapagal & Marcos.

The great honor to have personally known his great "little man" (he was only about an inch taller than Napoleon, as he used joke about) gave me a vision of what the United Nations is all about.

As a young boy, eager to learn and with a blotting-paper mind that absorbed any new development, I developed under my father's guidance a habit to read and be informed. No se less important was listening to world news on the radio and the appearance of television even was more enticing.

Needless to say that at 5, my knowledge of world events was astonishing and each day I showed keen interests on developments in a world full of hope and fears. Those were changing times where the horros of the past war were still in the adults' minds and the hopes for the children of my age was floating in the air.

I still remember how we were thrilled with new challenges as was colored TV or frightened by news about the Communist advance in Korea or the plane crash that killed U.N. Secretary General Daj Hammerskjold during a peace mission.

Today, as the dignataries pass from reception to session, and with the announce by U.N. Secreatary General of consensus on the text of the reform of the Orgnaization, with 191 members and 1 observer attending this General Assembly, I'm forced to ask myself - "What does the United Nations stand for ?"

I recall words of Carlos Romulo in the sense that this Organization which was born out of a need for understanding always lacked of a real sense of trust among it's members.

An Organization where 5 outstanding members have always reserved themselves the right to veto can hardly expect that anyone will trust that the decisions of the General Assemblies celebrated to date will ever be impartial and the rule-of-the-majority.

Today, I live in Spain, as citizen of this country. Our King Juan Carlos I will, in fact, address the General Assembly. So will our Prime Minister, Mr. Rodríguez Zapatero. Both have surely attended President Bush's reception and the conversations must have dealt with the devastion that Katrina caused in Lousiana. Nevertheless, we, after 60 years living in different countries of the world only have a fading hope that the United Nations Organization is ever going to be the forum of trust among the nations & states of the globe.

We sincerely would like to be wrong but the course of Historyu had shown that World War II didn't put an end to strife, rather it only served to along it to spread out small clashes and conflicts in lieu of the varied selfish interests of some of the World Powers. Moreover, after the invasion of Iraw by the United States and the United Kingdom, against the expressed wished of the United Nations, I see little hope for a better trusting world in true permanent peace.