Want robust defence partnership with India: Filipino Foreign Secy

Advertisement

New Delhi, June 28

The Philippines is looking forward to procuring more military hardware from India in its quest to develop a very robust defence partnership, said visiting Filipino Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo on Wednesday.

The Philippines has repeatedly challenged Chinese presence in its exclusive economic zones (EEZs) in the South China Sea and would continue to do so, he said at a lecture at the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) here on Wednesday.

Manalo will meet External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday.

Tensions between China and the Philippines have been present for long but seem to have escalated after the new Philippines President, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, gave the US access to more naval bases.

As a result, China this month set up three “navigation beacons” in South China Sea’s contested Spratly Islands to match the five navigation buoys placed last month by the Philippines within its 322-km exclusive economic zone.

All three beacons placed by China are on reefs that Manila says are within its EEZ where under international law, it enjoys sovereign rights to economic exploitation and exploration.

“We have already entered into some potential deals and I think we will be looking forward to having more. We certainly view our defence partnership with India as one of the brighter aspects of our mutual relationship. I am not talking about the distant future but in the near term,” he observed.

On China, he added, “We have almost on a daily basis made our concerns clear to China but at the same time, let me stress that the differences we have with China in the South China Sea are not the sum total of our relations with China. We have a significant bilateral engagement with China.”

India has inked a deal to supply three BrahMos batteries to the Philippines worth $375 million. “The BrahMos sale is the first export deal that India has signed for a full major weapon system and this paves the way for many more to come,” Atul Rane, CEO of BrahMos Aerospace, had noted.

The Philippines is also a member of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) which has the Quad and eight other countries to move supply chains away from China. The IPEF member countries are preparing a final text of a Supply Chain Agreement which will then be subject to domestic processes for signature, followed by ratification.