DAVAO CITY—While he earlier said the Philippines would remain an ally of the West, President-elect Rodrigo Duterte said Tuesday his administration will pursue a foreign policy that is less dependent on the United States and more focused on Filipino interests.
“We have this pact with the West, but I want everybody to know that we will be charting a course of our own. It will not be dependent on America. It will be a line that is not intended to please anybody but the Filipino interest,” Duterte told reporters here.
Aside from the US, Manila has been expanding its strategic partnerships and forged formal agreements with Australia and Japan. The Philippines is also eyeing a strategic partnership with Vietnam.
Like the Philippines, both Japan and Vietnam also have seething maritime disputes with China, which is claiming 80 percent of the South China and has occupied reefs within a contested “nine-dash line” border.
Manila has also improved relations with India which has expressed support for the Philippines’ move to bring its maritime dispute with Beijing to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, The Netherlands.
New Delhi noted that they also brought their Bay of Bengal dispute with Bangladesh to PCA and the
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea ruled in 2014 delimited the maritime boundary between India and Bangladesh and settled a long-running dispute.
On Wednesday, the Department of Foreign Affairs expressed satisfaction at the deepening defense cooperation with India after welcoming a delegation from India fs National Defense College, headed by Major General Sunil Srivastava SDS.
Duterte had earlier told US President Barack Obama in their first telephone conversation last May 17 that Manila will continue to pursue its mutual interests with the United States and that the country will remain an “ally of the west” in its stance against Chinese occupation in the South China Sea.
But the president-elect also told Chinese President Xi Jinping that he was “honored” to receive a congratulatory message from a great leader, like Xi.
Xi on the other hand said he hoped the two countries would work together to get bilateral relations back on the track amid cooling relationship because of their dispute in the South China Sea.
Asked about Duterte’s comments at a State Department briefing, Daniel Russel, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, said the United States had “no problem whatsoever” with bilateral talks among the South China Sea claimants.
Russel noted that some disputes in the South China Sea were by their nature multilateral and could not be resolved on a bilateral basis, but added “those that can, we’re all for it.”
Duterte’s designated foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay said that the incoming Duterte administration will likely push for bilateral means to resolve the territorial row with Beijing in contrast to the multilateral track adopted by the incumbent Aquino administration.
“The Duterte administration is bent on dealing with China through peaceful dialogue,” Yasay said. “This is necessary. I don’t think there are any other way to resolve these disputes except talking to each other.”
Yasay said that the Duterte administration is bent on dealing with China through peaceful dialogue.
“We have been pursuing this. I don’t see why we should stop,” he said.