MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines looks forward to continuing its long-standing partnership with the United States under President Joe Biden, Malacañang said Thursday.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said this as he extended to Biden the congratulatory message of President Rodrigo Duterte. Biden was formally sworn in as the 46th president of the United States.
“We in the Philippines look forward to continuing our long-standing partnership with the United States in working together for a freer, more peaceful world,” Roque said in his regular Palace press briefing.
“We’re confident that President Biden will wear his mantle of leadership with pride and with due regard to the hopes and admiration of the rest of the world,” he added.
The Philippines’ relations with its former colonizer became strained under then-U.S. president Barack Obama who criticized Duterte’s brutal war on drugs. It has improved under the presidency of Donald Trump, whom Duterte regarded as his “friend.”
However, Duterte continued to hurl anti-U.S. remarks as his government accused some U.S. lawmakers of interfering with the Philippines’ sovereignty by introducing measures meant to check the alleged human rights violations in the drug war. The President even went as far as abrogating the two countries’ Visiting Forces Agreement.
Biden served two terms as Obama’s vice president, from 2009 until 2017.