Arroyo sees no problem on PH’s friendship with US, China

Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. AFP PHOTO / NOEL CELIS

House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sees no conflict with the Philippines fostering friendship with both the United States and China, saying the two superpowers are “important” to our country.

“We can be friends with both. They are both very important to the world and to the region, and our friendship with them is very important to us, and their friendship with each other is also very important to us,” Arroyo said in an interview at the inauguration of the new building of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) in Clark Global City in Pampanga Tuesday.

United States Ambassador to the Philippines Sung Kim was present during the inauguration together with Hungarian Ambassador to the Philippines József Bencze.

The Pampanga 2nd District congresswoman then invited Kim and Bencze to bring more investments to the Philippines saying there is plenty of room for both.

“So there’s plenty of room again for more investments and we hope that there would be a lot of new investments coming from the United States Ambassador, from Europe, Ambassador, and of course from our Philippine investors,” she said.

“We hope that more people know about the American investments and we also hope that more American investments will come, now that we have this beautiful Clark Global City and the New Clark City as well,” she added.

The New Clark City will house the National Government Administrative Center and the Athletics Stadium and Aquatics Center, to be utilized in time for the 2019 Southeast Asian Games.

Arroyo also said a big Chinese industrial park and a Chinese Cultural Museum would be built in the New Clark City as part of a framework agreement signed during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the Philippines last Nov. 19-20.

Xi and President Rodrigo Duterte witnessed the signing of 29 agreements between the two nations that are locked in a territorial dispute in the West Philippine Sea (WPS).

READ: PH, China sign MOU on oil and gas development, 28 other deals

In July 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled Beijing’s claim to almost the entire South China Sea as invalid. But Duterte has chosen to set aside the historic ruling and engaged China in bilateral talks. /jpv

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