Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has said the fate of his country is tied to the US as a “partner” while delivering a speech after ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Monday.
Marcos Jr remarked that it is “very clear to me in my vision” that Philippines wouldn’t “move forward” without having Washington as a partner.
“When we are in crisis, we look to the United States,” said the Filipino President, who is in US to attend the UN General Assembly and hold discussions with Amercian business and officials.
At a reception hosted by the Filipino-American community in New Jersey the same day, Marcos Jr said that he was hoping to get an audience with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
The Filipino leader has also urged the American companies to boost investments in the south-east Asian country, as he listed out several policy initiatives enacted under his administration such as allowing “full foreign ownership” of companies in telecommunications, shipping and railways to lure foreign investors.
Marcos Jr, however, didn’t mention that the government policies cited by him were cleared by his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, who had been accused by domestic critics of putting the country’s maritime dispute in the South China Sea on the backburner in return for increased Chinese investments.
During a visit to Beijing in 2016, Duterte called for “separation” from the US, a mutual defence ally under a 1951 treaty. While Duterte had called for scrapping the military pact with the US at one point in his presidency, he didn’t do that and eventually expressed his gratitude to the Biden administration for helping Manila with COVID-19 vaccines at the peak of the pandemic.
Since taking over from Duterte, Marcos Jr has been vocal about his opposition to Beijing on the question of disputed Spratly Islands saying in his first presidential speech in July that he “will not preside over any process that will abandon even a square inch of territory of the Republic of the Philippines to any foreign power”.
At the same time, Marcos Jr has sought to strike a balance in ties with Beijing, which he has described as Manila’s “strongest partner”. The President has also said that he is open to joint exploration of oil in the disputed maritime territory.
However, Marcos Jr didn’t meet the Liu Jianchao, minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), when the Chinese delate visited Manila last month.
The President cited scheduling issues, but Liu said that Marcos Jr was “always welcome to visit” Beijing at a mutually convenient time.
In contrast, Marcos Jr granted audience to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken when the top American diplomat made a stopover in the country last month.