MANILA – The United States must continue to stand with the Philippines amid China’s continued aggression in the West Philippine Sea, according to outgoing United States Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, a losing presidential candidate during the 2024 US elections, made this remark during her telephone call with President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Tuesday evening.
“Indeed, and I will tell you from my first visit to Manila and our first conversation, it is extremely important to me and to the United States that we reaffirm the commitment to the defense of the Philippines including the South China Sea,” Harris told Marcos.
“I know there is bipartisan support within the United States Congress and within the US for the strength of this relationship and the enduring nature of it in terms of security, but again prosperity and to your point of people-to-people ties,” she added.
President Marcos, for his part, expressed gratitude to Harris as he also highlighted the robust and productive partnership between the Philippines and the US.
“Madame Vice President, before I came to this call I was going through all of the things that we had discussed in the past couple of years. And it is remarkable how much work we have been able to do and how much it has progressed and developed the relationship between our two countries,” Marcos said.
“Already very strong relationship but evolving and evolving for the modern challenges that we face, both for us and the South China Sea and for the United States around the world,” he added.
Marcos and Harris also discussed the trilateral cooperation with Japan as a key pillar of regional security, the latter helped accelerate with the first leader-level trilateral meeting in Jakarta in September 2023.
Marcos had a meeting with Harris before the beginning of the APEC Summit in San Francisco in November 2023 with the Philippine assessment as regards the situation in the West Philippine Sea as the topic of their discussion./PN
