MANILA – The United States is looking forward to a strengthened bilateral relationship with the Philippines in the next four years ahead of the November elections.
United States Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III made the statement during his and US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s courtesy call on President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. at the Kalayaan Hall in Malacañan Palace on Tuesday.
“We have common interests, common values, and so I think we’ve done a lot over the last three and a half years to continue to strengthen our alliance, and I look forward to another three and a half, or another four, in building, strengthening this relationship,” Austin told Marcos.
Blinken, for his part, stated that US is aiming for continuity in high-level engagements with the Philippines as they express readiness on helping the victims of Tropical Cyclone Carina recently.
“The Philippines’ hosting of the 4th Philippines-US Foreign and Defense Ministerial Dialogue is an evidence of a really steady drumbeat of very high-level engagements between our countries that are covering the full range of issues and opportunities that bring us together, not only security, but also economic. We’re truly grateful for this partnership,” Blinken said.
President Marcos, for his part, thanked the US officials for making the time to visit the Philippines even amid the “interesting political situation” in the US.
“Welcome back to the Philippines. And I am always very happy that these communication lines are very open so that all the all the things that we are doing together in terms of our alliance, in terms of a specific context of our situation here in the West Philippine Sea, in the Indo-Pacific, are continuously examined and re-examined, so we are agile in terms of our responses,” Marcos told Austin and Blinken.
“We are very happy to see you once again. I’m a bit surprised considering how interesting your political situation has become back in the States, but I’m glad that you found the time to come and visit with us,” the Chief Executive added.
The Philippines and the US have an existing Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT) signed in 1952, where each party “recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific area on either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance with its constitutional processes.”/PN
