PRESIDENT Duterte declared on Friday he would continue to shift the Philippines toward China, despite Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
At an early-morning briefing in Davao, Duterte said that, while the US would remain a friend and ally, the Philippines’s foreign policy was now geared toward China and the Asean. “I will pursue what I’ve started,” Duterte said following his return from a state visit to Malaysia. “My partnership with China and the rest of Asean will remain. I am not in the habit of reneging on my word.”
Duterte called himself “just a small molecule in the planet” compared with Trump. “He is now president of the most powerful country in the world,” Duterte said. “What we share in common is the passion to serve.”
In a state visit to China last month, Duterte announced a formal “separation” from the US and said he wanted to pivot to China and Russia—widening a split with his nation’s biggest security ally. Since being sworn in as president in June, Duterte has vowed to end joint military exercises with the US, called for American soldiers to leave the southern island of Mindanao, and told President Barack Obama to “go to hell.”
Maintain cooperation
Even so, with the two countries still bound by several agreements, including a mutual defense treaty, Duterte said the Philippines would “maintain our cooperation” with the US.
“It is still part of trying to play off the United States against China,” said Segundo Romero, a professorial lecturer in development studies at the Ateneo de Manila University. “His anti-US stance is a mix of sentiments against country and against its leadership.”
In a news statement on Wednesday, Duterte said he looked forward to enhancing Philippines-US relations under a future Trump administration, adding that they were “anchored on mutual respect, mutual benefit and shared commitment to democratic ideals and the rule of law.”