DEFENSE Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. and his Vietnamese counterpart, Gen. Phan Van Giang, are due to meet tomorrow to bolster relations of the two defense departments.
The Philippines and Vietnam are among claimants to the West Philippine Sea in the South China Sea. The others are China, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
Vietnam and the Philippines maintain good relations despite the territorial dispute. Troops from both sides have hosted friendly games in their occupied areas in the West Philippine Sea in the past years.
Teodoro, in a forum last Tuesday, said he and Giang are scheduled to sign “some agreements” during their meeting which will take place at Camp Aguinaldo.
“My counterpart, His Excellency General Phan, will be coming here on Friday to pay us a visit where we hope to get some agreements signed,” said Teodoro.
“And on that basis we can have a new framework, not really a new framework, but a new momentum and impetus for working together on the defense side and on the military side,” he added.
Teodoro, on the relations between Vietnam and the Philippines, said, “We see definitely that relationship advancing in the armed forces side and on the defense side, not only on the armed forces side.”
Teodoro noted the visit of President Marcos Jr in Vietnam last January.
“On the state level side, Vietnam was one of the countries our President visited in order to forge greater ties and relationship, intra-ASEAN and I believe that a South China Sea way forward was part of the conversation between our President and the Vietnamese President at that time,” he said.
“So we do see fertile ground for working together in order to get a level of confidence and trust,” he added.
Teodoro signed a defense cooperation with Singapore last month. Singapore said the agreement “serves as a framework to guide existing interactions and promote cooperation in areas of mutual interest such as military education and anti-terrorism, to foster closer people-to-people links.”
“So the intra-ASEAN efforts are gaining momentum and I believe starting this year, there will be a better chance of forging an ASEAN way forward in so far as general principles are concerned in the South China Sea,” Teodoro said.
