Marcos: US-Japan-PH trilateral agreement 'not directed against anyone'

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Monday said that the cooperation agreement between the Philippines, the United States, and Japan was not directed against anyone and not a direct response to "incidents" that are happening against the Philippines.

"It is not a response to the immediate occurrences, incidents that are happening to us, with us, around us," Marcos said at Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines' 50th Anniversary Presidential Forum.

"It is not directed against anyone.  It is merely a strengthening or formalization and execution of the relationship of the US, Japan and the Philippines," he added. 

Considering the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, and with the world still recovering from the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Marcos said the trilateral agreement was meant to maintain peace and stability in the region.

"These are the elements that we're having to deal with. These are the shocks that are completely beyond our control. So, we have to maintain commerce, we have to maintain the peace, we have to maintain stability and that's really the point of the trilateral agreement," he said.

"So that we provide for ourselves in the region, in the Indo-Pacific region, an area of peace and stability so that we can all find our way in this new global economy, post-pandemic economy," he added.

According to Marcos, the security and defense part of the trilateral agreement covers inter-operability and joint exercises which the countries have been doing before.

"We have now put it down on paper and a formal document as to what we plan and how that partnership will continue to evolve as time goes on," he said.

While the agreement highlighted security and defense, Marcos said the "even greater part" of the deal was the economic cooperation among the three countries. https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/topstories/nation/903586/marcos-back-in-philippines-from-trilateral-meeting-with-us-japan-in-washington/story/

Details on semiconductors, renewables, and transfer of technology were also discussed during the trilateral meeting in Washington DC, Marcos added.

A day after meeting President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Marcos told a press conference in Washington that "the trilateral agreement is extremely important." 

"It is going to change the dynamic, the dynamic that we see in the region, in ASEAN in Asia, around the South China Sea," Marcos said, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.—AOL. GMA Integrated News