PRESIDENT MARCOS: Thank you, Mr. President.
We – as you have mentioned, we had a very fruitful discussion just now with our quick tête-à-tête. It is significant that I chose Indonesia, Jakarta, to be my first visit of my presidency because for many reasons.
And one of those is that we are such – we are close in terms of, not only geographical location, but we are close in terms of culture, we are close in terms of ethnicity.
And I think that it is going to be the strong partnerships that we will make as we slowly come out of the pandemic economy, is what is going to lead us to success.
And that is why we go once again to our friends and to our partners around the world, especially in the region — together with what we spoke about, the ASEAN member countries and the common concerns that we share.
So again, it’s those partnerships I believe that will keep the stability of all of our plans and what we are hoping to do in the next few years.
But I would like to thank your government and you Mr. President for your kind invitation. And I think… Although it is the first time I have been to Jakarta, we look around and it feels like home, only because you are so warm.
You have welcomed us so warmly and we have felt the willingness of Indonesia to go into partnership with the Philippines and to strengthen the partnership that we are going to celebrate the 75th year in two years’ time and I think it is one of the longest that diplomatic relations. In fact, we have had relationships before we had countries. Indonesia and the Philippines were trading, exchanging, family members going back and forth from our southern islands to Indonesia for thousands of years.
And so that’s why it was very natural for us in the Philippines to come and I think we made the right choice and we thank you once again for the openness with which you have received us and the openness – the willingness that you have shown to strengthen that relationship between the Philippines and Indonesia which is our hope and it is what we are going to be working for.
Thank you Mr. President.
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SOURCE: OPS-PND (Presidential News Desk)
