The strategic partnership between Manila and Canberra is more important than ever, with the rule of law and regional peace under threat from China, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told the Australian parliament yesterday.
Marcos told a special joint sitting of the two chambers during a state visit that the Philippines would not allow a foreign power to “take even one square inch of our sovereign territory.”
It is a declaration he has often repeated since taking office in 2022 and refers to China’s disputed claims to territory in the South China Sea that Taiwan also claims.
Photo: AFP
Marcos said that Australia and the Philippines need to band together against new challenges to the region’s peace and stability, as they had against Japanese forces during World War II.
“Not one single country can do this by itself. No single force can counter them by themselves,” Marcos said.
“This is why our strategic partnership has grown more important than ever,” he added.
Marcos said that his father, former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, and then-Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam reaffirmed that the security of their two countries was bound together in 1974 when they toured the Philippines’ wartime battlefields of Bataan and Corregidor.
Australia and the Philippines for the first time conducted joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea in November last year.
Marcos Jr said that the Philippines and Australia fought to build a rules-based international order after the war and that they must now fight to protect that order in the South China Sea.
“The protection of the South China Sea as a vital, critical global artery is crucial to the preservation of regional peace and, I dare say, of global peace,” he said.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reminded Marcos Jr of his words when the leaders last met: “Prosperity and progress dependent on peace.”
“That is what is so significant about the maritime cooperation activities our two navies completed together for the first time in November last year,” Albanese said. “Our cooperation is an assertion of our national interest and a recognition of our regional responsibility.”
Marcos Jr’ address was interrupted briefly by Australian Senator Janet Rice, who held up a sign that read: “Stop human rights abuses,” an apparent protest against the Philippines’ record on rights.
Rice was later censured by a majority of her colleagues in the Senate with a motion that disapproved of her “unparliamentary and disrespectful conduct” in her protest, and her “disregard for the importance of Australia-Philippines relations.”
The censure is symbolic and carries no consequences for Rice.
Marcos Jr and Albanese also announced new agreements on maritime cooperation, cybersecurity and fair-trade regulation.
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