President Marcos said the Philippines is open to a possible visiting forces agreement (VFA) with Germany, but it is still a "long way off."

"Well, why not? We probably, in reality, we're still a long way off of that," Marcos said in a joint press conference with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday, June 16.

While the agenda remains farfetched, Marcos said the engagements in military, defense, and security are "actually increasing."

He said that the country is "very open" to it, stressing that he sees no disadvantage to such agreement.

"And perhaps when the time comes, certainly that would be something that the Philippines will be very, very open to. I cannot see any disadvantage to that," the President said.

"So yes, if the VFA, if we came to an agreement and we feel that it is time to have it, the Philippines would certainly entertain that possibility very warmly," he added.

Marcos explained that with the current geopolitical instability, it is necessary to forge partnerships and have a "wide base of alliances."

"With the volatility that is happening in the geopolitical world right now, the best path to stability is to have partnerships, is to have a wide base of alliances," Marcos said.

"Because not any one country can now influence or change or direct the way the world is working. And so we have to achieve two almost contrary aspirations: one, is to be stable and strong; and two, to be agile at the same time," he stressed.

The Chief Executive further said that "it's not an easy trick" but it is something that must be achieved, noting that multilateralism is a very important part of it.

"The world is so deeply interconnected as we have always seen. Covid I think was the first illustration of that in a very real sense. How quickly the world will react or will begin to stutter and sputter when there is a problem such as that," he said.