‘Indonesia has extended more than a warm hand of friendship when it invited the Philippines to the G-20 meeting on climate change during the first month of the Marcos administration. PBBM’s choice of venue for his first state visit is a reciprocal gesture of friendship.’
PRESIDENT Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. chose Indonesia, our neighbor to the south, for his first state visit on Sept. 4-6. The customary meeting with the Filipino community in every country visited by the Chief Executive was done yesterday. Scheduled today are the nitty-gritty activities of the state visit, capped by a one-on-one meeting between Marcos and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Spokesperson Ma. Teresita Daza of the Department of Foreign Affairs said Widodo will meet with Marcos at his official residence, Bogor Palace, which is in West Java, one-hour drive from Jakarta.
Since Indonesia and the Philippines are strategically located in the Pacific rim, creating some sort of a peninsular wall at the edge of the ocean, the military importance of this part of the globe cannot be discounted. It is therefore important for these two Asean countries to unite and align their defense concerns and capabilities for their bilateral interest.
This must be the reason behind two of the key agreements to be signed during the state visit — a Plan of Action between the DFA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, which will lay out a comprehensive and action road map for bilateral relations over the next five years; and the Renewal of the 1997 Agreement on Cooperative Activities in the Field of Defense and Security between the Philippine Department of National Defense and the Ministry of Defense of Indonesia, which will serve as mother framework for all defense and security cooperation.
The two countries have similar extensive porous borders and are close partners in maritime cooperation, having concluded a landmark accord on exclusive economic zone and boundary delimitation in 2014.
The President is also expected to discuss with Widodo the country’s concerns on the South China Sea, since both the Philippines and Indonesia are recipients of big-ticket investments and grants from China, mostly in the infrastructure, transport, and energy sectors. Indonesia is scheduled to be the next chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
Indonesia, which is the largest economy in Southeast Asia, is a key trading partner of the Philippines, and so Marcos will meet with business leaders to promote trade and investment. Another accord to be signed is the renewal of the Memorandum of Understanding on Cultural Cooperation between the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia, which will promote people-to-people exchanges and mutual understanding through cultural activities of the two countries.
Indonesia has extended more than a warm hand of friendship when it invited the Philippines to the G-20 meeting on climate change during the first month of the Marcos administration. PBBM’s choice of venue for his first state visit is a reciprocal gesture of friendship.
