Marcos: PH-US-Japan meeting seen to give structure to cooperation

BERLIN—The Philippines’ trilateral meeting with officials from the United States and Japan next week is expected to formalize and give more structure to the cooperation among the three countries, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. said on Wednesday.

Marcos indicated that what the three countries would take up in Manilais still the subject of discussions in Washington, Tokyo, and in the Philippine capital.

“Well, of course, we’ll hope the intention is to continue to plan strengthen the cooperation between the three countries—the United States, Japan, and the Philippines,” Marcos said.

“And we will perhaps formalize it but we, at this point, we are still just part of the discussion that we will be having exactly what will be in any agreement,” he added.

“It is probably just formalizing what we are already doing, which will put a bit more structure to what we will do… interoperability and the actual joint cruises that we are having,” Marcos said.

Philippine government sources earlier said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Japan Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa will visit Manila next week for talks focusing on bolstering defense and economic ties ahead of a summit of their leaders in US in April.

Blinken will first arrive in Manila on March 18 for bilateral talks with Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo and other senior Philippine officials before their March 20 trilateral ministerial meeting with Kamikawa, the sources said.

The top-level meetings follow a series of hostilities between Chinese and Philippine ships and vessels in the disputed South China Sea, which have been denounced by the Philippines along with the United States and Japan.

At the top of their agenda is a planned trilateral summit of US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Marcos at the White House in Washington DC on April 11.

The US and Japan have also boosted their trade and investments in the Philippines while enhancing defense cooperation. —NB, GMA Integrated News