House Speaker Martin Romualdez (Speaker’s office)

For House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the relationship between the Philippines and China is comparable to the life of a normal married couple. 

"You see, the relationship between rhe Philippines and China is a multi-faceted one. There are many areas of engagment: people to people; economic, financial engagements, trade; cultural, educational, sports; you know," Romualdez said Friday, Nov. 10 during “The Defense Forum” organized by the National Defense College of the Philippines Alumni Association at Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City. 

"Id like to look at it at this approach: Maski ako at asawa ko (Me and my wife), we love each other very much, but there are some areas na nagtatalo kami (but there are some areas that we argue over)," he said. 

"We try very much to avoid those areas of conflict," noted Romualdez, leader of the 300-plus strong House of Representatives.  

The recourse then, according to the House chief, is to look for "areas of common interest" with regional giant China. 

"Yung mga areas na medyo maayos ang relation natin, doon po talaga dinadaanan ng ano natin (Let’s just focus on areas where our relationship is good). 

"Kaya (That's why) we try to look at the areas of common interest, some common ground...we try go generate more good will by emphasizing those facets of the relationship," Romualdez said. 

The Leyte 1st district representative lamented that currently, Philippine-China ties are being defined by unsavory occurrences. 

"Because yung nangyayari ngayon (what's happening right now)...the relationshop now is being defined by those incursions of China in the WPS," he said. 

"I'm still very hopeful, because the President is, that we can actually make headway in these other areas of cooperation," Romualdez said. 

"So para sa akin (So for me), let's try to work with China...more on actual engagements, more on cultural, sports, people to engagements," he said. 

"We hope, we really like to look at the relationship in its totality. Kung doon lang nakatutok yung atensyon natin, di ba, talagang masama talaga yung relaayon (If we focus our attention on the [WPS], then the relationship really looks bad). So we have it look at the totality of it," added the House leader.