President Marcos said the government will no longer sit idly by while Filipino fishers continue to suffer from threats in the West Philippine Sea, Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel "Babe" Romualdez said.

Romualdez said on Wednesday, April 10 (Washington time) the Philippine government is now taking stronger actions in asserting its territorial integrity over its exclusive economic zone as "for so many years, the Filipino patience has been stretched to the limit."

"And we are now at the point where [we're not] just going to sit and allow and see our fishermen suffer and not be able to fish in the areas that they’ve been fishing in–fishing grounds for hundreds of years," Romualdez told reporters at a briefing held prior to the trilateral summit among Marcos, United States President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House.

Manila's envoy in Washington reaffirmed Marcos' commitment to protect the country's sovereignty as well as the rights of the Filipino fishers through pursuing multilateral approach.

While the Philippines cannot spell out China's intentions when it comes to issues in the South China Sea, Romualdez said the Philippines already knows clearly what it wants to do: "to protect our territory and our sovereign rights."

“That is what the President is fighting for, that is what we’re all fighting for. We just want to be given our right to be able to explore our own environment, our territory, the respect for international law,” he said.

The envoy said it is already about time for the Philippines to point out in a clear way (and) to resolve the issue through dialogue "in a manner that is not intended to push another country for a conflict."

He said the summit will define the future and direction of the Indo-Pacific region, and that the country can take comfort in knowing that there are so many like-minded nations supporting freedom of navigation, rule of law, and the arbitral award won by the Philippines in 2016 in line with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

"So, these are things that we are simply fighting for. We’re not asking, looking for any conflict with any country. In fact, we’re reaching out to the ASEAN region. Again, it’s a multilateral approach," he said.

"This is a policy that the President has spelled out to all of us. That we want to be able to solve these issues multilaterally, not just because we have a strong ally like the United States," the envoy added.