Hon. Franklin M. Drilon is President of the Philippine Senate. His first stint in government service was in 1986, when then-President Corazon Aquino appointed him as the Deputy Minister of Labor. A few months later he became Secretary of the Department of Labor and Employment. Drilon was appointed Secretary of the Department of Justice in 1990, also during the Aquino presidency. In 1991, he was appointed Executive Secretary of the Office of the President. During the term of President Fidel Ramos, he was reappointed as Secretary of Justice. He was drafted to run in the 1995 senatorial elections, in which he placed fourth in his first attempt at a national election. At the start of the second half of his six-year term, Drilon assumed the post of Senate Majority Leader and subsequently the Presidency of the Philippine Senate. Senate President Drilon became Chairman of the Liberal Party in 2004 and currently serves as the Party President. He is currently the Chairman of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats. In 2005, Senate President Drilon was elected Chairman of the 112th General Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the international organization of the parliamentarians of sovereign states. He finished his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and his Bachelor of Laws at the University of the Philippines.

Hon. Graham Watson was born in Rothesay, Scotland, in March 1956, the son of a Royal Naval Officer and a teacher. He was educated at The City of Bath Boys' School and at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, where he gained an honours degree in Modern Languages. He is a qualified interpreter who speaks four European languages. From 1983 to 1987 he served as Head of the Private Office of the Rt. Hon. Sir David Steel MP, then Leader of the Liberal Party. He was previously the General Secretary of the Liberal International's youth movement, and was a founder of the European Communities' Youth Forum. Immediately before entering parliament Graham Watson worked for the Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation in their London and Hong Kong offices. His six years with HSBC included a three-month stint with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. He maintains an active interest in the Far East and is an Adviser to the Asia-Pacific Public Affairs Forum. He was the first British Liberal Democrat ever to be elected to the European Parliament, winning the Somerset & North Devon constituency with a majority of over 22,500. In June 1999 Graham was elected to represent the newly enlarged South West of England constituency, which covers Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall, and which he has held ever since. From 1994 to 1999, Graham was a member of the Committee for Economic & Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy as well as the Budget Committee. From July 1999 to 2002, he served as Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. In January 2002, Mr. Watson was elected Leader of the European Parliament’s Liberal Democrat group, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.

The Lord Alderdice is the President of Liberal International. Born in Northern Ireland, John Alderdice qualified in medicine at Queen's University, Belfast, and specialized in psychiatry, becoming a Member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. He joined the Alliance Party in 1978 and was its elected Leader from 1987 to 1998. Elected to Belfast City Council and to the Northern Ireland Forum, he became a key participant in the Northern Ireland Peace Process and a negotiator of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He was subsequently elected as a member of the new Northern Ireland Assembly in June 1998, but surprised the political world when he decided to stand down as Alliance Leader after 11 years in the position.  He was appointed as Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, a post he held until retiring in February 2004. In 2003 he was appointed to serve in the four-person Independent Monitoring Commission charged by the British and Irish Governments with monitoring paramilitary activities and security normalization in Northern Ireland. He served first as Treasurer and later as Vice-President of the European Liberal Democrats Reform Party (ELDR) between 1995 and 2003. Lord Alderdice was raised to the Peerage of Baron Alderdice of Knock in 1996 and took his seat in the House of Lords that year, being one of the youngest ever in the Peers.

Hon. Dr. Wolfgang Gerhardt is the Chairman of the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation, former leader of the German Free Democrat Party (FDP) and the recent leader of the FDP Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag. Born 31 December 1943 in Ulrichstein-Helpershain (state of Hesse), Dr. Gerhard studied political science, German studies and education at the University of Marburg and obtained his Doctorate degree in 1970. From 1970 to 1978 he was the personal advisor to the Minister of Interior of the state of Hesse. From 1978 until 1994, he was a member of the state Parliament (Landtag) in Hesse. From 1983 until 1987, Dr. Gerhard was Chairman of the State Parliamentary Group of the FDP. He became Minister for Science and Art of the State of Hesse and Deputy Chairman of FDP in 1987 and kept this position until 1991. Since 1994, he has been a Member of the Parliament (Deutscher Bundestag). From 1995 until 2001 he served as the Leader of the FDP. From 1998 to 2006 he was the Leader of the FDP Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag. Dr. Gerhardt was elected Vice-President of Liberal International at the Budapest Congress in 2002. He was re-elected at the 52nd Congress in Dakar in 2003, and the 53rd Congress in Sofia in 2005.

Her Excellency Corazon "Cory" C. Aquino is the 11th President (1986 to 1992) of the Republic of the Philippines. In 1983 she succeeded her murdered husband, Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. (a respected critic of the Marcos administration and Secretary General of the Liberal Party), as leader of the opposition to President Ferdinand Marcos.

Corazon Aquino, the first woman to become president of the Philippines, was born in Tarlac on January 25, 1933. Her parents are Don Jose Cojuangco and Doña Demetria Sumulong. She was the sixth among eight children.  In 1946, her family left for the United States, where she enrolled at Ravenhill Academy in Philadelphia. She finished her junior and senior years at Notre Dame College in New York. She entered Mount Saint Vincent College in New York City in 1949 where she finished a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in French. In 1953, she returned to the Philippines to take up law at the Far Eastern University, but abandoned further studies in 1955 to marry Benigno Aquino, who was then a promising young politician. Mrs. Aquino remained in the background during her husband's subsequent career, rearing their five children at home and later in exile. Her husband was assassinated immediately upon his return from exile August 1983.

When Ferdinand Marcos unexpectedly called for presidential elections in February 1986, Corazon Aquino become the unified opposition's candidate for the presidency. Though she was officially reported to have lost the election to Marcos, Aquino and her supporters challenged the results, charging widespread voting fraud. High officials in the Philippine military soon publicly renounced Marcos' continued rule and proclaimed Aquino as the Philippines' rightful president. On February 25, 1986, both Aquino and Marcos were inaugurated as president by their respective supporters, but Marcos fled the country later that day.

In March 1986, Mrs. Aquino proclaimed a provisional constitution and soon thereafter appointed a commission to write a new constitution. The resulting document was ratified by a landslide popular vote in February 1987. In spite of her continuous popular support, Aquino faced an ongoing outcry over economic injustice, a problem that was exacerbated by continuing warfare between the communist insurgency and a military whose loyalties to Aquino were uncertain. She has recently taken a role in bridging stakeholders in the country's growing microfinance sphere and is active in promoting democracy especially in Asia.

Hon. Hans van Baalen, MP, was born in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on 17 June 1960. He studied International Law and International Relations at Leyden University. He served in the Royal Netherlands Army as an Officer for International Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC). At present he holds the rank of Reserve Lieutenant Colonel. In 1988 he joined Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu as a Management Consultant. He left Deloitte in 1998 as Chief Executive Officer of Public Affairs Consultants, to start a career in politics. In 1986 Hans van Baalen joined the Dutch Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In 1988 he became a Member and subsequently Chairman of the Dutch Group of Liberal International. From 1993 until 1998 he was International Secretary of the National Executive Committee of VVD and was VVD National Campaign Manager for the 1998 and the 2003 general elections. In May 1998 he was presented with the VVD Thorbecke Award. In September 1999 Hans van Baalen succeeded Frits Bolkestein as a Member of the House of Representatives of the States General, the Lower House of Dutch Parliament. After the May 2002 general elections in which he lost his parliamentary seat, Mr. van Baalen went on a tour of duty to Bosnia to conduct humanitarian relief work. In the January 2003 general elections, he recaptured his seat in the Dutch Parliament. Hans van Baalen is at present the parliamentary spokesman for VVD on Foreign & European Affairs and Defense. He is a Member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and Chairman of the Netherlands-Belgian Parliamentary Exchange Club.  He has been a Member of the ELDR Party Council since 1993, a Vice President of Liberal International since 1997 and a Member of the LI Human Rights Committee since 1999. From 1999 until 2000 he was Special Rapporteur of LI on the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. Hans van Baalen chaired the ELDR Manifesto Committee for the European elections in 2004 and was an Alternate Member of the EU Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2005 he was elected President of the Supervisory Committee of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (IMD). Mr. van Baalen became a Bureau Member of LI at the 50th Congress in Ottawa, October 2000, was re-elected at the 51st Congress in Budapest, March 2002, and again at the 52nd Congress in Dakar, October 2003. He was elected Deputy President of Liberal International at the 53rd LI Congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, May 2005.

Hon. Chung Eui-yong, MP was elected to the 17th National Assembly of the Republic of Korea as a member of the ruling Uri Party. He is currently the Senior Commissioner for the Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Uri Party. He served as the Chairperson of the Governing Body of the International Labor Organization from 2003 to 2004, and as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva. He served as Chairman of the Special Session of the TRIPs Council for the Doha Development Agenda at the WTO and Special Coordinator for the Review of the Agenda at the Conference on Disarmament. He has had a distinguished career both in Korea and abroad, with over 30 years of experience in the international arena. He was Ambassador to Israel prior to his appointment as Deputy Minister for Trade in 1988. His other diplomatic posts include Ottawa, Bangkok, Washington D.C, and Brussels. Within the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, key posts he has held include Director of the Trade Policy Division, Deputy Director General for Information Analysis, Spokesman, and Director-General of the International Trade Bureau. Mr. Chung received his Master Degree from Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.

Hon. Kyösti Virrankoski has been a Member of the European Parliament since 1996 and is currently a Member and Deputy Coordinator of the Committee on Budgets and Member and Deputy Coordinator of the Committee on Agriculture. He is also serving as a Substitute Member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and temporary Committee on Financial Perspectives. Concurrent to his European Parliament committee posts, he is the Vice President of the Japan Delegation and JPC-EU-Romania Delegation. Prior to his entry to the European Parliament, he was a Teacher of Mathematics, 1968-1996; part-time farmer; Member of Municipal Council of Kauhava from 1973-2000; Chairman from 1990-1999; President of the Regional Council of South Ostrobothnia from 1993-2000; Political Secretary to the Minister of Defense from 1983-87; Presidential Elector in 1988 and Member of Finnish Parliament 1991-1995.

Hon. Dato’ Dr. Seevaratnam Vijayaratnam is a senator in Malaysia and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities. He is Vice President of Parti Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia. Dr. Vijayaratnam is also the chairman of the International Affairs & Ethnic Relations Bureau within the party and the chairman of party’s branch in Sungai Ujong.  Senator Vijayaratnam is a member of the National Economic Consultative Council, a fellow of the Royal Society of Health in London, and an honorary fellow of the Indian College of General Practitioners in New Delhi, India.

Hon. Felicito Payumo is the Chairman of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority. Under Payumo’s chairmanship, the SMBA received ISO9001:2000 certification, the first eco-zone authority in the country to receive such certification. It was also the first time that an entire government agency was ISO certified. He served as Member of Parliament for the 8th, 9th and 10th Congress of the Philippines. In 2003 he was awarded as one of The Ten Outstanding Filipinos. For his performance in Congress, he was consistently voted one of the Top 10 legislators. Prior to his service in the government, Payumo worked in the private sector, serving in top corporate positions and also becoming president of EEI, the country’s leading construction firm. He also served once as professor in the Ateneo de Manila University Graduate School of Business. He received his economics degree (cum laude) from the Ateneo de Manila University. He finished his MBA at the Harvard Business School as an SC Johnson Scholar and completed the Executive Program for Leaders in Development at the Harvard Institute for International Development.

Hon. Dr. István Szenti-Ivanyi has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2004. He is the Vice Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with the Korean Peninsula, Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Substitute member of the Committee on International Trade and Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners. He is also a member of the Delegation to the EU-Romania Joint Parliamentary Committee. Prior to his current European Parliament post, from 1990-2004 he served as Member of Parliament of Hungary; from 1997-98 and 2000-2002 as Group leader; 1994-1997 as Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; 1998-2002 as Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs; 2002-2004 as Chairman, Parliamentary Committee on European Integration; and 2003-2004 as observer at the European Parliament.

Hon. Shuji Kira is a Member of Parliament of Japan. He is currently a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry of the House of Representatives. MP Kira is a senior member of the Democratic Party of Japan, in which is he currently serves as the Vice Director General of the International Department and the Executive Office. Prior to his entry into government service, he served as an executive of Nissho Iwai Corporation Tokyo Headquarters.  He studied Law at the University of Tokyo and Portuguese at the Juiz de For a Federal University in Brazil.

Hon. Jules Maaten, MEP was elected as a member of the European Parliament in the European Elections of 10 June 1999 as a member of the Dutch Liberal Party (VVD).  He subsequently joined the Liberal Group in the Parliament. He currently sits on the Committee for the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs and, since 2002, the Foreign Affairs Committee. During the first part of the legislature he sat on the Economic and Monetary Committee. He has done legislative work on such issues as the Tobacco Directive, the introduction of the euro currency, water quality, AIDS, completion of the EU's internal market in alcohol products, international banking fees, the European Central Bank, safety of children's toys, car exhaust emissions, food safety, genetically modified organisms and human genetics. Mr. Maaten is part of the parliamentary delegation maintaining relations with the ASEAN countries and Korea and of a number of parliamentary Inter-Groups, including Population & Sustainable Development and Animal Welfare. He has been active on EU foreign policy issues including human rights, the shipment of nuclear material, East Timor, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, the International Criminal Court, the death penalty and the war in Chechnya. In 1999 he was elected board member of the European Liberal Democratic Party. Since the end of 2001 he has been leader of the VVD-group in the European Parliament. Before his election as MEP, Jules Maaten was Secretary General of the world union of liberal parties, the Liberal International, in London (1992-1999), during which time he was involved among others in supporting democratic movements in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to that (1986-1991) he was a municipal councillor in his hometown of Amstelveen, near Amsterdam, where he dealt with public finance education and social affairs. As President of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) from 1983 to 1989, he worked on issues of disarmament and east-west co-operation. He began his political activities in 1979 as Personal Assistant of a Member of Parliament in the Netherlands (1979-1981), and as Member and Chairman of the European Youth Policy group of the Dutch International Youth Council, in which Dutch youth organizations discussed their views on the future of European unification. A year later Mr. Maaten became a national Board Member of the Dutch Young Liberals JOVD (1980-1984) and in 1981 joined the board of IFLRY. In 1982 he joined the executive committee of the Youth Forum of the European Communities in Brussels (a European-wide body of youth organizations), and was on the staff of the Netherlands committee for the UN International Youth Year (1983-1985) where he dealt with such issues as unemployment and youth culture. From 1985 to 1989, he was a member of the executive committee of Liberal International. In 1987 he co-authored a book on Dutch liberalism, and he published numerous articles on political issues.  For a number of years he studied History and Law in Amsterdam.  

Hon. Henedina Abad is a Member of Parliament of the Philippines. She is currently the Vice Chairperson of the Committee on Good Government Reorganization. Previous to her current post in government, she served as the Professor and Dean of the Ateneo School of Government. At the Ateneo she has held various senior administrative and teaching posts. She has served many local NGOs in various capacities including Chairperson of the Transparency and Accountability Network, Executive Director of the Philippines-Canada Human Resource Development Committee, Inc. and Coordinator of the Congress for a People’s Agrarian Reform.  She finished her economics degree from the Ateneo de Manila University and her Master of Public Administration degree from the Harvard School of Government. She also participated in various courses focusing on participatory development and leadership in transition economies of the Harvard Institute for International Development.

Senator Francis “Kiko” P.N. Pangilinan is the Majority Leader of the Philippine Senate. One-third of all committee reports filed during the 12th Congress were penned by Senator Pangilinan, the most of any other senator.  He was elected majority leader of the 12th Congress, the youngest person in this position since 1937. Previously, Senator Pangilinan served as Chairman of the Senate Committees on Justice and Human Rights, Housing and Urban Planning, Education, and the Ethics and Public Accountability.  During his college years, he served as President of the University of the Philippines Student Council and as the first student member of the UP Board of Regents with voting power. He earned his Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of the Philippines. He later conducted lectures at the Ateneo de Manila, and in 1997, pursued his Masters in Public Administration at the Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Prior to his government service, Senator Pangilinan was a broadcast journalist and human rights advocate, working as a collaborating lawyer with the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG).  He is currently the Chairman of the Liberal Party of the Philippines.

Hon. Bi-khim Hsiao, MP is currently an elected Member of Parliament in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan (Taipei City district) and the immediate past Secretary General of the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD). Serving as a senior member of Taiwan's Foreign Relations Committee, she also recently served as the director of the Department of International Affairs at the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Ms. Hsiao was elected to the Bureau of Liberal International at the Dakar Congress in October 2003, and is the first Bureau member from Asia to be elected to this position. She was re-elected as Vice-President at the 53rd Congress in Sofia, Bulgaria, May 2005. Previously, Ms. Hsiao served as an advisor to President Chen Shui-Bian, and acted as a spokesperson for President Chen's successful election and re-election campaigns of 2000 and 2004. Additionally, she was a consultant to the Mainland Affairs Council, engaging in peace and development work in the cross strait region. She is founder of the Taiwan Association of Women in Sports, Vice Chairman of the Taiwan-Tibet Exchange Foundation and Board Member of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy. Born in Kobe , Japan , Ms. Hsiao grew up in Tainan , a city in southern Taiwan. She received her BA in East Asian Studies from Oberlin College and her MA in Political Science from Columbia University in the United States.

Hon. Sam Rainsy, MP, is the President of the Sam Rainsy Party, Member of Parliament and Leader of the National Opposition of Cambodia. Mr. Sam was a founding member of the FUNCINPEC party. He became Minister of Finance in the coalition government that emerged in Cambodia after the UN-supervised elections in 1993. He was a Member of the Supreme National Council of Cambodia from 1992 to 1993. In 1995, he formed the Khmer Nation Party, which was forced in early 1998 to change its name to the Sam Rainsy Party in order to contest the 1998 elections, in which he was re-elected to Parliament. In the July 2003 elections, the Sam Rainsy Party garnered the second largest number of votes. The party became a member of CALD in 1999 and Mr. Sam served as Chairman of CALD from 2000 to 2002. Prior to his entry to politics, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of DR Gestion, a Paris-based investment company and Bank Director at Paluel-Marmont, a French bank that specialized in financial research and stock investment. He was a financial analyst and investment manager with various banks and financial institutions in Paris. Mr. Sam received his MBA from INSEAD Paris.