By J. Eduardo Malaya / Ambassador to the Kingdom of the Netherlands
IN a world where relationships are increasingly seen as cursory and fleeting, there is something to be celebrated when a partnership reaches 70 years.
This year the Philippines and the Netherlands commemorate seven decades of diplomatic relations. Of course, actual people-to-people interactions began more than 400 years ago, when Olivier van Noort of Rotterdam led Dutch ships to the Philippine islands in search of spices and colonial conquest.
Yet, like all relationships that reach the platinum milestone, it is a fine time to undertake an assessment of this relationship. Diplomatic relations require constant tending and unceasing determination by partner-countries to ensure productivity. This is particularly true at this time of intense competition for resources and of complex geopolitical, economic and environmental challenges.
In November 2020 the Netherlands published its Indo-Pacific Guidelines for strengthening Dutch and European Union (EU) cooperation with partners in Asia. This pivot toward the said continent highlighted a reinvigorated cooperation with the Asean, and identified priority areas of practical cooperation.
Both the Dutch and EU policy papers vis-à-vis the Indo-Pacific—the latter published in September this year—emphasized the importance of ensuring the growth and development, security, rules-based international order, and stability of the region. This is borne of the realization that the Indo-Pacific region has become the world’s strategic and economic center of gravity, as European Commission Vice President Joseph Borrel noted.
The Philippines has a major role in this region-to-region interface, as coincidentally it recently assumed the role of country coordinator of the Asean-EU relations up to 2025. It is in the interest of our country, the Netherlands and EU to maintain open economies and societies that allow for relatively free movement of goods, services and peoples.
Top economic partner
NOTWITHSTANDING the 10,581-kilometer distance between the two countries, the Netherlands has historically been one of the top economic partners of the Philippines. The former has been among the five leading investor-countries in the Philippines, and at $245 million in 2020, was Number 1 among 28 EU member-states. In 2019 the European country was the Philippines’s ninth export market, with goods valued at US$1.9 billion—and growing.
As nations with significant maritime interests, cooperation in the area of maritime sphere is robust, with some 22,000 Filipino seafarers onboard Dutch-flagged vessels that ply the world’s waters. Some 41,313 Dutch tourists visited pre-pandemic. They enjoyed our pristine beaches and shopping centers. We would like to see them back once leisure travels normalize.
Dutch products and businesses abound locally. Most Filipinos have long been familiar with Dutch offerings without much thought about their origin, such as using Dove, Surf and other Unilever items, or filling up for gas at Royal Dutch Shell pumps.
Even at this time of pandemic when economic activities have slowed down, dredger vessels from the Royal Boskalis Westminster NV—one of the world’s leading dredging companies—are busy in the Manila Bay undertaking land reclamation and development for the new international airport being developed by the San Miguel Aerocity Inc., in Bulacan. As the second international gateway to Metro Manila, it will unlock further opportunities and boost growth north of the capital region.
Global interests
THE pandemic underscored the vulnerability of states to transborder challenges, as well as the reality that effective solutions are increasingly multilateral in nature and best approached through shared undertakings and commitments. It has also shown that effective bilateral and multilateral cooperation is one that adopts a perspective that benefits everyone. It is no longer enough that there will be no permanent friends and only permanent national interests, but that—given challenges such as the pandemic and climate change—global interests should be pursued as assiduously as one’s own national interests.
In 2020, after 69 years, the Philippines and the Netherlands conducted their first bilateral consultations, which was followed by the second meeting in June 2021. The consultations affirmed commitments by both sides to work toward strengthening cooperation in the political, economic and sociocultural areas, as they also produced a joint work program with emphasis on trade and investments, water management, maritime matters, agriculture, as well as science and technology.
It is with this outlook that the Philippine Embassy in The Hague, in partnership with the Ateneo de Manila University, the Netherlands Embassy in Manila and the Foreign Service Institute, hosted the webinar: “Philippines-Netherlands Connections @70: Reconstructing History and Forging Ahead” on November 9 and 10 (https://sites.google.com/dfa.gov.ph/fildutchsolidarity70/). It featured senior government officials, business leaders, historians and other distinguished personalities with the aim to assess relations, as well as contribute to a roadmap to strengthen and scale up ties.
There is momentum for an enhanced, mutually beneficial partnership, and we should sustain it.