The Philippines and India will “accelerate” their maritime cooperation and plan to hold a dialogue to discuss collaboration on maritime domain awareness and law enforcement, among others, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Enrique Manalo said on Tuesday, March 26.
(From left) Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar speaks to the media during the joint press conference with Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo on Tuesday, March 26, 2024. (DFA screenshot)
In a joint presser after a meeting with Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, the Foreign Affairs chief stressed that both countries “have a shared interest in a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific region.”
“Minister Jaishankar and I have decided to accelerate our maritime cooperation, with a planned Maritime Dialogue with India to be held in Manila following the successful Track II dialogue in September last year,” he said.
The dialogues “confirmed several promising areas for collaboration, especially in maritime domain awareness, shipping and seafaring, search and rescue, law enforcement and environmental protection.”
During the press conference’s question-and-answer with the media, Jaishankar gave an overview of what to expect during the dialogue that’s scheduled to be held in Manila.
“What the maritime dialogue is intended to do is actually to explore what more we could do,” he told reporters.
The foreign official cited as example the coast guard vessel which is coming to the Port of Manila.
“It’s a pollution control vessel. I believe you have some serious incidents of oil spills and other pollution challenges. So there is a lot of work to be done here,” he said, adding the primacy of environment, ecological, and security work.
Manalo, for his part, also revealed that the Philippines and India “are having extensive discussions regularly on defense cooperation, security cooperation, mainly also with the view of supporting an international rules-based order.”
The DFA chief also lauded India’s role in the modernization program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).
“With regard to our defense and security cooperation, we see the defense industries of India continuing to play an important role in the AFP Modernization Program,” Manalo said, also highlighting India’s support of the Philippines’ Self-Reliant Defense Posture.
Their engagements in training and joint defense committee meetings are also meant “to see where we can bolster our cooperation.”
“We have exchanged views in regional security developments as well as various activities in the context of our defense engagement plan,” the DFA chief added.
The official stressed that the Philippines is “keen to begin closer cooperation” with India in the fields of science and technology, space and financial technology, particularly on financial inclusivity because of the latter’s “significant successes.”
Also “high in our shared development agenda” are development cooperation, agriculture, food security, affordable healthcare, and infrastructure, he furthered.