Pinatututukan ni Pangulong Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. sa mga ambahador ng bansa ang patuloy na paghahanap ng non-traditional partners partikular sa linya ng kalakalan, seguridad at depensa.
“So let us keep looking at those areas. And also what I found many times, you go there and you talk about agri and something else comes up.” —Pangulong Marcos.
Sa pulong kasama ang mga bagong talagang Filipino chief of mission at ambassadors sa Palasyo, ipinaliwanag ng pangulo na kailangan kasing makasabay ng Pilipinas sa nagbabagong panahon, sa gitna na rin ng kasalukuyang global situation, at sa gitna na rin ng pandemic economy.
Hinikayat rin ng pangulo ang mga envoy na i-explore at talakayin ang mga oportunidad na maaaring maging beneficial sa bansa at sa mga Pilipino.
“I’m sure you have heard that we are prioritizing agriculture, energy, all of the infrastructure development, and digitalization. Now, if there are opportunities that would come up, you should explore them and if they’re promising enough, then we’ll take it up. We’ll try to see if something can come up. There’s no harm in trying and kung anuman ang mangyari, at least we tried,” —Pangulong Marcos.
“We are constantly now- after all the changes that have been imposed upon us, like the pandemic economy and the world situation, looking for what we sometimes referred to as non-traditional partners in trades, in any kind, in security and defense issues. All these things, we are always looking for partners,” —Pangulong Marcos.
Habang ginamit rin ng pangulo ang pagkakataon upang bigyang diin ang posisyon ng administrasyon sa pananatiling neutral sa usapin ng foreign policy.
“We do not subscribe to any notion of a bipolar world. We only side, of course, to the Philippines, not to the US, not to Beijing, not to Moscow. That’s very much being independent in what we do,” —Pangulong Marcos.| ulat ni Racquel Bayan
