ASEAN summit with Australia to be used to push key issues

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Sunday said he would use the summit between Australia and Southeast Asian nations to push the Philippine position on key regional and global issues.

“The summit presents an opportunity to reiterate the Philippines’ national positions on regional and international issues and set the tone for ASEAN’s (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Dialogue Partner Summits later in the year,” he said in speech before his second trip to Australia in a week.

He did not say what these issues are.

The President is attending a two-day special summit between Australia and ASEAN in Melbourne. Last week, he spoke before Australia’s Parliament during a two-day state visit.

Before his departure on Sunday, a US-based think tank reported the presence of two Chinese research vessels in Benham Rise, which falls within Manila’s exclusive economic zone in the South China Sea.

Mr. Marcos said the summit is an opportunity for the Philippines to thank Australia for its “unwavering support” for the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 2016 arbitral ruling that voided China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.

Canberra has been mainstreaming international law by releasing “timely statements of support” and “through capacity-building and academic initiatives.”

Mr. Marcos told Australia’s Parliament last week that the Philippines is on the “frontline” of a battle for regional peace, vowing to remain firm in defending Philippine sovereignty.

The Philippine leader will separately meet with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon.

He will also participate in a Philippine business forum and deliver a keynote speech at the Lowy Institute.

Mr. Marcos will also attend the launch of the expansion of Victoria International Container Terminal, Australia’s first fully automated container terminal. Victoria is a unit of Philippine-based International Container Terminal Services, Inc.

Two Chinese research vessels that left Longxue Island in Guangzhou on Feb. 26 were seen “loitering east of Luzon in the northeast corner” of the Philippine Rise, Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation fellow Raymond M. Powell said on Friday.

The Philippine Navy on Sunday confirmed the report and said the vessels had left the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone as of 3 pm on Saturday.

The Navy on Sunday was set to launch an air surveillance flight over the resource-rich area east of Northern Luzon. —