Obama to visit PHL on April 28 and 29

(Updated 3:56 p.m.) US President Barack Obama will be in the Philippines on April 28 and 29, in a visit aimed at further strengthening ties with its long-time ally, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Cuisia announced on Friday.

Speaking before a business forum in Makati City, Cuisia said defense and security cooperation, trade and people-to-people exchange are high on the agenda of talks between Obama and Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino III.

This is the first visit of a US President to the Philippines in 11 years after President George W. Bush’s trip in October 2003.

“It will be a working visit,” Cuisia told reporters at the sidelines of a dialogue hosted by the Makati Business Club and Management Association of the Philippines.

“The important thing (during this visit) is to reaffirm the strong military alliance, the strong economic relations and people to people exchange that they’ve had with the Philippines,” he said.

Obama will be on a week-long Asian swing that includes Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and the Philippines later this month.

His visit to the region is expected to reassure Asian allies at odds with China, like Japan and the Philippines, of American support amid long unresolved territorial conflicts and disputes.

Sea dispute

Territorial disputes over the resource-rich South China Sea became a tug-of-war ground for a rising China and a returning America, the Pacific power which has come to realize how rapidly it lost the strategic advantage and tight control it once wielded over the region when it stepped back and focused its attention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some parts of the waters within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone as mandated by a United Nations law are referred by Manila as West Philippine Sea.

Relations between the Philippines and China were strained by Manila's move to bring their maritime row to international arbitration to try to declare as illegal Beijing’s massive claim over the South China Sea and its features where undersea oil and gas deposits have been discovered.

The US has publicly declared several times that it would honor its military treaty agreement that obliges American troops to help defend the Philippines if its ally comes under attack even in the South China Sea.

New PHL-US defense pact

Manila and Washington are finalizing a defense agreement that would pave the way for an increased rotational presence of American troops in the Philippines, allow them to store equipment and grant their soldiers, ships and aircraft access to Filipino military installations across the country.

Specific details of Aquino and Obama’s meeting are being worked out, according to Cuisia, but said he hopes the accord, called Enhance Defense Cooperation, would be signed on or before Obama’s visit.

“This will be both mutually beneficial to the Philippines and the United States,” he said. “This will enable us to build a minimum credible defense posture and that would mean not only training hopefully we could get more equipment.”

An expanded US military presence, Cuisia noted, can help the Philippines defend its territory as it builds up a defense capability to guard and defend its maritime borders, including Manila-claimed areas in the disputed South China Sea which is claimed nearly in its entirety by China.

China frowns upon any foreign intervention, particularly US engagement, on the sea disputes that also involves other claimants Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan. Washington maintains it is in its national interest to ensure freedom of navigation and flights over the waters, where a bulk of the world’s trade passes through.
 
On Thursday, Malacañang denied it is rushing to seal the agreement for increased rotation presence of US troops in the country in time for Obama's visit.

Earlier this year, Presidential Communications Operations Office head Herminio Coloma Jr. said Obama will meet with Aquino III to "discuss ways to further strengthen the enduring Philippines-US alliance, including the expansion of security, economic, and people-to-people ties." 

"President Obama’s visit will provide a new momentum to Philippines-US relations and strengthen the partnership of the two nations in many areas," he said then.

Aside from visiting the Philippines, Obama will also visit Japan, South Korea, and Malaysia this month, the White House announced in February. 

Obama was supposed to visit the Philippines in October 2013 but it was canceled after the US government went into a shutdown. — KG/RSJ, GMA News