Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez on Wednesday confirmed that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will be visiting the Philippines in the first week of February.
According to Romualdez, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. agreed to meet with Austin to discuss the country's "defense treaty concerns."
In another interview, the envoy said Austin expressed his desire to meet his Filipino counterpart, Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., who was appointed to lead the country's defense and security earlier this month.
"Secretary Austin has been planning to come to the Philippines, if I'm correct it's been over a month since I was informed in Washington that he wanted to come to the Philippines so we have a new Secretary of Defense, he's looking forward to meeting him," Romualdez said.
"The main purpose is really to be able to again be able to interact with our defense establishments especially with our new Defense secretary," he added.
This comes after Romualdez said there is a serious discussion on future maritime cooperation between the Philippines and the United States, which includes conducting joint patrols in the West Philippine Sea.
Romualdez also revealed that Marcos and his US counterpart Joe Biden may soon meet again should their schedules permit some time in April.
