3 Polish lawmakers in Manila to boost political, trade ties between PH, Poland

MANILA, Philippines—Three Polish legislators are in town for a three-day official visit to push for stronger political and economic relations with the Philippines and trade experiences in crafting laws beneficial to each country.

The three-member delegation from the Poland-Philippines Parliamentary Group (Polsko-Filipinski Grupe Parlamenta) in Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 3:35 p.m. on Wednesday via Singapore Airlines (SQ912).

The delegation led by the Polish parliament’s deputy speaker Jerzy Wenderlich will meet with Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario on Wednesday afternoon and with House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Jr. on Thursday.

They will also have separate meetings with Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, Transportation and Communications Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya and with the Chair of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Patricia Licuanan.

“We hope for stronger ties with the Philippines after this visit. There will be talks on different levels,” Wenderlich said in an interview at the NAIA 1.

He said he was expecting an “an exchange of experiences” with Philippines’ Belmonte. “We also want to discuss what new laws the country needs and the best ways how to effectively implement them,” the Polish lawmaker said with an interpreter.

Accompanying Wenderlich is another member of the parliament, Bozenna  Bukiewicz, who is also the vice-president of Poland’s ruling Civic Platform Party (Platforma Obywatelska or PO) and president of the Polish Group of Inter-Parliamentary Union. Bogdan Janiowski, who heads the Sejm’s Chancellery or Permanent Secretariat is also with the delegation.

Wenderlich and Bukiewicz are vice presidents of the Poland-Philippines Parliamentary Group, which was formed in March in 2013 to boost ties of Poland with the Philippines.

Its president Adam Szejnfeld was recently elected as member of the European Parliament.

Philippine Ambassador to Poland Patricia Ann Paez who welcomed the delegation at the airport said that the Poland-Philippines Parliamentary group, composed of Polish legislators from various political parties, was the first-ever formed in Poland’s parliament to advocate stronger relations between the Philippines and Poland.

She said that this group has been ensuring that the country’s ties with Poland, a “heavyweight” among the central and eastern European countries, “will broaden and deepen in a multi-faceted and multidimensional ways.”

The Philippines has a counterpart group, the Philippines-Poland Parliamentary Friendship Federation whose president is the chair of the House committee on foreign affairs, Rep. Al Francis Bichara.