President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. expressed optimism that the recently concluded trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio will translate into sustained peace and stability in the South China Sea.
In his opening remarks during his meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III at the Pentagon, President Marcos extended his gratitude to the US government for its unwavering commitment and support to maintain peace and order in the South China Sea.
“This visit here to the Pentagon reaffirms once again the strength of the relationship between the United States and the Philippines in the face of all the threats and challenges that we have had to face together,” President Marcos said.
“The Philippines is always enabled to look to the United States for support and we hope that this trilateral agreement, which we formalized yesterday will be a formalization of an added multilateral support and structure that will make the safety, the peace and the stability of the South China a reality and continued to be a reality,” he added.
President Marcos met with Austin at the Pentagon Friday morning (local time), or a day after his historic trilateral meeting with US President Joe Biden and Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio in Washington, DC on Thursday afternoon (local time).
The chief executive emphasized that the Philippines and the US have done so much work, hoping that the trend continues.
“I view the new agreements and the new partnerships, and alliances that we have forged including the trilateral agreement, not as a response to any particular challenge or threat but merely a continuing development and evolution of the relationship that we have been fostering over a hundred years,” he said.
“And I can only see that our two countries getting closer and working together, and in closer coordination so as to be able to provide continuing defense of international law and international rule of–in the UNCLOS especially in the differing claims that we are having to deal with in South China Sea,” he added.
Before concluding his remarks, the President extended his gratitude to the US government for the warm welcome it accorded to the Philippine government and for the opportunity to consult them to see what the Philippines and the US can do in the future. |PND
