<\/p>\n
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III on Tuesday paid a courtesy call on President Ferdinand \u201cBongbong\u201d Marcos Jr. at the Malaca\u00f1an Palace.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Austin reassured President Marcos that the US government considers the Philippines more than just an ally.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The US also sees the Philippines as family, according to Secretary Austin.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve said a number of times that we\u2019re more than allies, we\u2019re family, and it always feels that way when, you know, I\u2019m working with our colleagues,\u201d Austin told President Marcos.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cYou know, we have common interests, common values, and so I think we\u2019ve done a lot for the last three and a half years to continue to strengthen our alliance, and we look forward to continuing to work with you and your team to move even further,\u201d he added.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Austin said the US government \u201clooks forward to another three and a half or another four in building \u2013 strengthening this relationship.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The two US officials are currently in the Philippines to attend the Fourth Philippines-United States 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue, the first in Manila.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is a policy-level dialogue co-chaired by the Secretaries of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Department of National Defense (DND), and the US Department of State and Department of Defense.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n For his part, Blinken described their visit to the Philippines as \u201cgenuinely historic.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first time that the Philippines has hosted our 2+2. It\u2019s, I think, really evidence of a steady drumbeat, a very high-level engagement between our countries that are covering the full range of issues and opportunities that bring us together, not only security but also economic, and we\u2019re truly grateful for this partnership,\u201d Blinken said.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe look forward to a very good day with our colleagues and to further advancing the critical work that we\u2019re doing together,\u201d he added.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Philippines-US formal diplomatic relations span 78 years since their formal establishment on July 4, 1946.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III on Tuesday paid a courtesy call on President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. at<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7482,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7479\/revisions\/7482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journaldailynewsonline.com.ph\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}