President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (R) meets with German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius (L) in the Malacañan Palace on Monday, August 5, 2024. Pistorius paid Marcos a courtesy call after meeting with Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on Sunday. In their meeting, Marcos thanked Germany for its continuous support of rules-based international law. PHOTO FROM MPC POOL
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. met with German Federal Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius in the Malacañan Palace on Monday.
Pistorius paid Marcos a courtesy call after meeting with Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. on Sunday, August 4. In their meeting, Marcos thanked Germany for its continuous support of rules-based international law.
“In the last [few] years, in terms of European representation … We always look to our partners, and our allies, for support, and we are grateful to Germany for continuing to support the rules-based international law that we all abide by,” the President said in welcoming Germany’s defense minister.
For his part, Pistorius expressed elation over the planned signing of a defense cooperation agreement – which he made with Teodoro – by the end of 2024.
READ: Philippines, Germany to ink defense pact this year
Pistorious noted the “long history of cooperation” between Germany and the Philippines.
“We already sent a draft a couple of weeks ago, and so we can now continue working on it,” he said.
“We are convinced that it is necessary even more than ever before to work together, to stand together, to support rules-based international order, because all of us know and we experience every day that the security of one region is always at the same time the security and stability of the other region,” the German government official added.
Last March, Marcos went to Germany and secured at least $4 billion (about P220 billion) in foreign investment commitments from German companies in health care, information technology, agriculture, and manufacturing.