By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

PHILIPPINE President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Tuesday said he had a “very productive” congratulatory phone call with United States President-elect Donald J. Trump, following an election that has put countries in the Indo-Pacific region on a wait-and-see mode.

“I expressed to him our continuing desire to strengthen the relationship between our two countries,” Mr. Marcos told reporters on the sidelines of his visit to a typhoon-hit province in the Bicol region, based on a transcript from his office.

He said the relationship between the US and the Philippines are “as deep as can possibly be because it has been for a very long time.”

Also on Tuesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III, who is in his fourth visit to Manila, said the US alliance with the Philippines would transcend changes in administrations, as he reiterated his support for the Southeast Asian nation.

The Philippines will remain an important country for the United States for many years, Mr. Austin told a press conference during a visit to the Philippine military’s Western Command on the island of Palawan next to the South China Sea.

Both Mr. Austin and Philippine counterpart Gilberto Eduardo Gerardo C. Teodoro, Jr. expressed concerns over China’s conduct in the South China Sea, with the Pentagon chief reiterating Washington’s defense commitments to the Philippines under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT).

Mr. Austin said the treaty would also cover armed attack in the South China Sea, where he said China had used dangerous and escalatory measures to try to assert its expansive claims.

The Philippines and China have been embroiled in repeated spats in the past few years over disputed features within Manila’s exclusive economic zone, sparking regional concerns about a miscalculation and escalation at sea.

China claims sovereignty over almost the entire South China Sea, a conduit for more than $3 trillion in annual ship-borne commerce, putting it at odds with its Southeast Asian neighbors.

US-Philippine ties have reached unprecedented levels under Mr. Biden, with Washington announcing a plan to develop an economic corridor on the main island of Luzon in April following a trilateral meeting among Mr. Marcos, his US counterpart, and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Last year, Manila gave Washington access to four more military bases under their 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

STABLE ALLIANCE
The call, which Mr. Marcos described as “very friendly” and “very productive” signals the continuity of a stable alliance between the two countries, an analyst said.

It “shows the likely stability of the PH-US alliance in the next few years,” said Joshua Bernard B. Espeña, who teaches foreign relations at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines.

“Indeed, Trump shows indicators of skepticism towards Atlanticist multilateral arrangements, but it’s another story towards Indo-Pacific arrangements, such as the bipartisan support towards China policy on lines of trade and defense matters,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat.

“This complexity coincides with the Philippines under the Marcos administration whose aim is to bolster a large defense network as it can while committing itself to do more as long as the other does the same.”

Following Mr. Trump’s election, US Ambassador to the Philippines MaryKay Carlson cited bipartisan support for foreign military financing to the Philippines.

While there are nuances that will change in every US administration, “the strength of the US-Philippine relations and the importance of the Indo-Pacific to the American people will remain,” she said on the sidelines of an election viewing event in Manila.

She said support from both Democrats and Republicans in the US goes “across the board, not just when it comes to our military-to-military relationship.”

“Trump’s business-minded personality and Marcos’ cosmopolitan outlook provide a compatible hue to the color of the Indo-Pacific strategic environment,” Mr. Espeña said.

“Of course, their personalities should transcend into institutionalization of compatible grand strategies for decades to come.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Marcos said he also “reminded” Mr. Trump that Filipinos in America “overwhelmingly” supported him during the November polls.

“I plan to meet him as soon as I can,” he added. — with Reuters

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday said the country’s “biggest problem” now is the billions of pesos in agriculture damage left by the series of destructive typhoons that hit the country with the most recent one leaving seven dead.

Mr. Marcos on Tuesday said the government was particularly concerned about the damage to agriculture left by Super Typhoon Man-Yi (Pepito), which made a landfall on Catanduanes island in Bicol region late on Saturday and over Aurora on Sunday.

“The biggest problem, of course, was agriculture damage,” he told reporters in Filipino on the sidelines of his visit to Catanduanes, noting that the province of Catanduanes is the center of production of abaca (Manila hemp) in the Philippines.

The Philippines supplies 85% of the world’s abaca fiber, earning about $80 million per year.

Bicol region was the largest producer of abaca in the Philippines, accounting for 40.1% of the country’s production, according to 2019 data from the statistics agency. It also had the largest area planted for abaca, with 43.16 thousand hectares in 2019.

Data from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) on Tuesday morning showed agriculture damage due to Man-Yi and two other typhoons that hit the country in span of just two weeks had hit P8.64 million; while damage to infrastructure had risen to P469.84 million.

National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan on Friday told BusinessWorld that the government expects the agriculture sector to be among the hardest-hit sectors in the face of cyclones.

“Agriculture, in the third quarter, declined by 2.8%. For the whole year, it’s likely negative for agriculture,” he said.

Jonathan L. Ravelas, senior adviser at professional service firm Reyes Tacandong & Co., said the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for the fourth quarter will likely decline.

The full year figure for 2024 may hit only 5.8%, lower than the 6-7% expansion that the government has projected for the year.

The GDP for 2025 may also miss the government’s 6.5-7.5% target, with the economist expecting a 6.5% expansion.

“We already saw weak quarters for agriculture,” he said in a Viber message on Tuesday.

Mr. Marcos had already expressed frustration for climate change’s economic impacts, saying in October that its damage to the national economy could reach up to 7.6% of the gross domestic product by 2030.

Due largely to the impacts of weather disturbances and reduced government spending, the Philippine economy grew by 5.2% in the third quarter, lower than the revised 6.4% growth in the second quarter and the government’s 5.7% forecast.

The agriculture sector saw a 2.8% decline year-on-year, which NEDA linked to the El Niño and seven typhoons, including Severe Tropical Storm Trami (Kristine), had caused an estimated P15.8 billion in agricultural damage.

The successive storms disrupted supply chains and delayed harvests, he noted.

A Nov. 6 report by the Philippine Statistics Agency showed agricultural production experienced the steepest decline in nearly four years.

The value of production in agriculture and fisheries at constant 2018 prices fell by 3.7% to P397.43 billion in the July-to-September period, according to the report, worse than the 0.2% decline in the same period a year ago and the 3.8% contraction in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Mr. Marcos, fresh from an aerial inspection in Catanduanes on Tuesday, said that in the “immediate” term, the government is focused on providing reconstruction materials for affected families.

He handed over P50 million to the provincial government for its recovery efforts.

The Philippine weather bureau has lifted all wind signals due to Man-Yi as it weakened into a severe tropical storm and exited the Philippine area of responsibility on Monday afternoon.

NDRRMC said in its Tuesday morning report that seven people died due to a landslide during the onslaught of Man-Yi, 30 people were injured, while two others were reported missing during the typhoons that hit the country within just two weeks.

It said the cyclones had affected 1.8 million individuals, equivalent to nearly half a million families.

NDRRMC said 20 cities and municipalities have declared a state of calamity as of Nov. 19.

Four storms had hit the country in the last two weeks, a phenomenon that the weather bureau said was not odd.

It is expecting two more cyclones to enter the country in December, when the predominantly Catholic nation sees a surge in demand related to Christmas festivities. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza