By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

PHILIPPINE President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. will meet with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken next week to tackle security concerns, the presidential palace said on Thursday, amid increasing tensions with China.

“I will be meeting with Secretary Blinken on Tuesday,” the president told a news briefing in Berlin where he was on a state visit. “What is confirmed so far is the meeting with him.”

Mr. Blinken’s visit comes after Mr. Marcos visited Europe this week including Germany, where he cited China’s increasing assertiveness in the South China Sea.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Jose Enrique A. Manalo said his office had not received a confirmation from Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa if he would also come to Manila for a three-way ministerial meeting.

“As for Japan, it’s not confirmed if they will be coming or not, but at this stage we haven’t received any confirmation,” he said at the same briefing.

“We hope the intention is to continue to plan, to strengthen the cooperation between the three countries — the United States, Japan and the Philippines,” Mr. Marcos said.

“And we will perhaps formalize it. It is probably just formalizing what we are already doing, to put a bit more structure as to operability,” he added.

The possible three-way meeting comes on the heels of increasing tensions in the South China Sea, which China claims almost in its entirety.

Chinese President Xi Jinping last week called on his country’s armed forces to coordinate preparations for military conflicts at sea and help in the development of China’s maritime economy.

The Philippines should do what it can to defend its sovereignty, Mr. Marcos said, citing “a more active attempt by the Chinese to annex some of our territory.”

Mr. Marcos told Australia’s Parliament last month he would not allow any foreign power to take “one square inch” of the country’s territory. “I will not allow any attempt by any foreign power to take even one square inch of our sovereign territory,” he said in a speech during his visit.

Australia and the Philippines started their first joint sea and air patrols in the South China Sea in November, aimed at countering an increasingly assertive China.

The South China Sea is a conduit for more than $3 trillion (P166 trillion) worth of ship-borne commerce each year and is a major source of tension between the Philippines and China.

The Philippines accuses China of committing aggressive acts inside its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). A United Nations-backed arbitration court based in the Hague in 2016 voided China’s sea claims — a decision Beijing has rejected.

‘HISTORY’
Mr. Marcos’ meeting with Mr. Blinken and the possible three-way meeting among Manila, Washington and Tokyo could mean “expanded foreign military intervention and basing,” said Raymond Palatino, secretary-general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), which has opposed US military presence in the Philippines.

“We never learn from history,” he said in a Facebook Messenger chat. “Those who posed as friends end up becoming ruthless invaders and colonizers.”

Bayan accused Mr. Marcos of advancing Washington’s geopolitical interest in the region “by shamelessly offering our country as an extension of the US military network.”

The Philippine leader has veered away from his predecessor’s pivot to China, boosting Philippine security ties with the US and other Indo-Pacific powers such as Japan and Australia.

In February, the Philippines gave the US access to four military bases on top of the five existing sites under their 2014 Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement.

Last week, the governor of the northernmost province of Batanes said a plan was under way for the construction of a US-funded civilian port.

Batanes is just more than 200 kilometers from Taiwan, which China claims as its own.

The US Indo-Pacific Command and Philippine military completed the third iteration of their maritime cooperative Activity, which started in November.

The Philippines and Japan last month agreed to finalize talks on a possible reciprocal access agreement similar to the Philippines’ visiting forces agreement with the US.

Mr. Marcos arrived in the Czech Republic on Mar. 13, a move that is seen as part of a broader effort to diversify the Philippine economy away from China, its largest trade partner.

Tensions between the Philippines and China have worsened in the past year as Chinese coast guard and militia ships continue to block resupply missions to a World War II-era ship that Manila grounded in 1999 at Second Thomas Shoal to assert its sovereignty.

Mr. Marcos before leaving for Germany this week said the Philippines should step up economic ties with “like-minded nations.”

There’s no one else to blame for Manila’s stronger partnership with the US and Japan but China, Chester B. Cabalza, founder of Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, said via Messenger chat. “Beijing’s belligerence and unstoppable gray zone tactics pushed President Marcos to the limit.”

A Chinese envoy said earlier this year the two countries’ relations were at a crossroads. The Philippine Foreign Affairs department last week said it had filed nine diplomatic protests against Beijing this year, bringing the total since Mr. Marcos assumed office in July 2022 to 142.

The Philippine military on Tuesday said it had spotted about 50 Chinese vessels within the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) in the South China Sea, many of them near the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

At least four Philippine Navy officers were injured earlier this month after China’s coast guard fired water cannons at one of two wooden civilian boats used in a resupply mission at Second Thomas Shoal, according to the Philippine National Security Council.

The water cannons from two Chinese Coast Guard vessels shattered the windshield of Unaizah Mae 4, causing minor injuries to the officers, it said.

It also accused a Chinese coast guard vessel of executing “dangerous maneuvers” against the escort ship, leading to a minor collision that resulted in “superficial structural damage” to the hull of the Philippine Coast Guard vessel.

The US and Japan have condemned the incident.

PHILIPPINE President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Wednesday told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no authority to investigate his predecessor’s deadly war on drugs.

He also touted his government’s shift to rehabilitation in its anti-drug campaign, adding that erring cops have been punished.

“It is very difficult for the Philippines to accept that an outside court will, shall I say, dictate to our policemen who they will investigate, who they will arrest,” he told Mr. Scholz, based on a transcript from the presidential palace.

It did not say how Mr. Scholz, whose country had helped establish the ICC, responded to Mr. Marcos.

The government estimates 6,252 deaths in ex-President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s anti-illegal drug campaign, but domestic and international human rights groups say the death toll could be as high as 30,000, including 122 children.

The ICC probe covers alleged crimes committed in Davao City from November 2011 to June 2016 when he was still its mayor, as well as cases during his presidency up until March 16, 2019, the day before the Philippines withdrew from the ICC.

The University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center’s Dahas project had said there were 342 drug-related killings a year into Mr. Marcos’ term, including 115 deaths during police drug raids.

The European Union has condemned the Duterte government’s drug war, even threatening to end trade preferences given to the Philippines. Germany in 2019 voted in favor of a United Nations resolution to probe the deadly campaign.

Mr. Marcos told Mr. Scholz his government has reorganized the Philippine police force to get rid of cops involved “in some of the more nefarious practices.”

He said the state’s approach had “changed significantly,” a claim that international group Human Rights Watch debunked, citing continuing drug-related killings.

“He cannot claim progress because the impunity persists,” Human Rights Watch Asia Deputy Director Bryony Lau said in a statement.

He also belied Mr. Marcos’s claim that some law enforcers have been “tried and convicted,” noting that only two cases have resulted in the conviction of police officers out of the thousands of killings since 2016.

“Investigation by the government into these killings has not produced any significant results, while authorities continue to refuse to assist in the investigations of government agencies such as the Philippines Commission on Human Rights,” he added.

Mr. Lau said the deadly war on drugs remains a “state policy.”

“Marcos has not rescinded Duterte’s issuances for the drug war,” he said. “He has likewise never categorically and publicly ordered law enforcers to stop the violence.”

Mr. Marcos has been met with protests during some of his foreign visits, with domestic and foreign groups pressing their governments to hold the Philippine leader to account for human rights violations.

Greens Party Senator Janet Rice, who was present during Mr. Marcos’ speech at the Australian Parliament in Canberra last month, pulled out a placard that read: “Stop the human rights abuses.”

Her colleagues at the Australian Greens Party, including senators Jordon Steele-John, David Shoebridge and Barbara Pocock, boycotted Mr. Marcos’ engagement with the Parliament and held protests outside.

“He cannot claim progress because the impunity persists,” Mr. Lau said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza