President-elect Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and Ambassador of Finland Juha Markus Pyykko met on Wednesday, June 15 to discuss the economic and global effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, among other things.
Read more here: https://mb.com.ph/2022/06/15/marcos-meets-envoys-from-europe-africa/
During their courtesy call, Marcos and Pyykko discussed the war in Europe and what the Philippines and Finland could do together amid the resulting economic and global crisis.
“We share a land border of 1300 kilometers with the Russian federation. Russia is and will be our neighbor but the Russian aggression against Ukraine has totally changed the security situation in my country and in the neighborhood there and as the aggression of Russia is a breach of international law, it’s not a European issue, it’s a global, international issue. That is what I underlined to the President-elect as well,” Pyykko told local reporters on Wednesday, June 15.
“I think what Finland and the Philippines can do together is to uphold international law and international rule based order. Classically and traditionally, the Philippines has been a very active and solid member of the United Nations so we have to work in order to preserve the multilateral, international rules based system and that's very important," he noted.
"About inflation, about fuel prices, we have to be very careful and clear here. The EU has no sanctions on the agricultural products from Russia. Zero. The inflation due to fuel prices and grains is because of the Russian aggression, not because of the sanctions,” he continued.
Pyykko also had good things to say about the current Duterte administration when it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
"As you know the current government administration here–the Philippine government, we appreciate; they have condemned through the United Nations General Assembly resolutions. The Philippines has been in the group of countries condemning the Russian aggression and what I conveyed to the President-elect is that I hope that his administration will continue to appreciate and respect this approach from the Philippines side in the future as well," Pyykko concluded.