The Philippines and Guatemala have renewed their ties and vowed to forge stronger cooperation in agriculture, climate action, and people-to-people relations.

This developed during President Marcos' meeting with Guatemala Non-Resident Ambassador Manuel Estuardo Roldán Barillas after he accepted the latter's credentials in Malacañan on Tuesday, Oct. 3.

Citing the two countries' distinct similarities, Marcos said the governments of the Philippines and Guatemala can work on looking for solutions to issues on agriculture, climate change, and their people.

“With the Philippines, we have prioritized agriculture and all the other obvious things: infrastructure and power, renewables. and all. But in our case, we really have had to make a special effort and special focus on agriculture,” he said.

“We have found that (with) our Latin American friends, this is the most obvious area where we can share since many of the crops that we talked about are similar. What agricultural knowledge there is in Guatemala will certainly – we will find an application for here in the Philippines,” he added.

Marcos said the Philippines and Guatemala could also explore many other opportunities, particularly learning from their respective efforts in mitigating climate change.

“Climate change is becoming an incredibly important part of everything that we do because we certainly find that any discussion in terms of government and administration, we always, in the end, have to look at the subject of climate change,” he said.

“Every other aspect of governance is touched by the effects of climate change. So, that would be… Well, I am sure we could learn a good deal from Guatemala,” he added.

The Chief Executive also highlighted the government’s efforts to protect the Filipino workers' welfare, saying they have brought "a great deal of benefits to the people, the country, and its economy."

For his part, Barillas said he was happy to meet President Marcos and to visit the Philippines for the first time as he expressed optimism about the strengthened bilateral relationships between the two countries.

“I can see at the outset that I want to express my admiration for your efforts concerning the service sector of your economy and how you take care of your workers outside the Philippines,” Barillas said.