President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. on Thursday said the joint agreement between the Philippines and China in elevating the "direct communication line" is geared at avoiding incidents in the West Philippine Sea.
During his three-day state visit to Beijing China, Marcos Jr. met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and proposed the establishment of a direct communication mechanism between Manila and Beijing to avoid heightened tension in the West Philippine Sea.
"Ang aking proposal ay iakyat, pataasin natin ang bilateral, ang mga member ng mga bilateral. Sabi ko, ang pinakamaganda, sana ‘yung Chinese members of the bilateral group have a direct access to the President," the President told reporters before his departure in China.
[My proposal is to raise and elevate the bilateral, and the members of the bilateral. I said the best way is that those Chinese members of the bilateral group to have direct access to the President.]
"Ako naman on my part, titiyakin ko ‘yung mga nakaupo sa bilateral team natin ay may direct contact din naman sa atin para diretso… nothing will be lost in translation. Hindi magkakaproblema sa misinformation na maaring mangyari kapag napakatagal bago nakapag-usap kami," he added.
[Meanwhile, on my part, I will make sure that those who are part of our bilateral team have direct contact so that nothing will be lost in translation. We won't have problems with misinformation that could cause slow down our communication.]
With this, Marcos Jr. expects the tension in the West Philippine Sea between the two countries to ease down.
"The intention of course is to minimize all of these ‘incidents,’ siyempre ‘yung report nila naiba doon sa report natin. Pero di bale, let’s just call it an incident and sana mabawasan na ‘yun. I think it will," Marcos said.
[The intention of course is to minimize all of these ‘incidents,' of course their report is different from our report. But nonetheless, let's just call it an incident and hope it would ease down. I think it will.]
President Marcos and President Xi earlier affirmed to establish a “direct communication mechanism” to prevent possible miscommunication in the West Philippine Sea.
The two leaders made this agreement in a joint statement released on the final day of President Marcos’ official state visit to Beijing, China.
This communication line would be opened between the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Office of the Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of Boundary and Ocean Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.
According to the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS), the two leaders concurred that “confidence-building measures would contribute to improving mutual trust,” and reaffirmed the importance of the Foreign Ministry and Consultations and the Bilateral Consultation Mechanism on the West Philippine Sea.
In the same meeting with Xi, the President also raised the situation of Filipino fishermen to Xi.
“Clearly that’s the very important issue for us and siguro naman, after we came to an agreement with President Xi, that this is an important aspect of our relationship, something that is easily remedied, relatively easily remedied, we will… when we get back, the Foreign Secretary and his counterpart here in China will finalize the organization of that and fix the situation with our fishermen and that’s number one on the agenda,” Marcos said.
Marcos said the two parties would agree to ensure that Filipino fishermen could go to natural fishing grounds in the region.
The two leaders recalled the Joint Statement on the 20th Anniversary of the DOC, adopted in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on November 11, 2022.
The DOC, signed by China and the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nat
