Photo credit: PCO

Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has assured that the new bilateral defense guidelines between Manila and Washington will address the security challenges faced by both allies.

The guidelines emphasize the need to defend against threats in cyberspace and aim to guide priority areas of defense cooperation to address conventional and non-conventional security challenges of shared concern to the United States and the Philippines.

During a question-and-answer session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, Marcos stated that security and defense can no longer be isolated as one issue and that there are attendant and ancillary issues that must be addressed to solve the problem. He also stressed the need to focus on the new economy emerging from the post-pandemic world and to adjust the relationship between the two countries as they transform their economies.

In a meeting at the Pentagon on Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reaffirmed Washington's commitment to bolstering the Philippines' defense capabilities as the allies develop a Security Sector Assistance Roadmap to guide shared defense modernization investments over the next five to ten years.