Pres. Duterte's Tokyo visit to bolster strategic partnership between PHL and Japan

From the Philippine News Agency (Oct 25): Pres. Duterte's Tokyo visit to bolster strategic partnership between PHL and Japan

President Rodrigo Duterte is scheduled to arrive here Tuesday for an official visit from Oct. 25 to 27 following his back-to-back state visits to Brunei and China, to discuss the economic and defense cooperation and scale up the strategic partnership between the Philippines and Japan.

The state visit, which will involve meetings with Emperor Akihito, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and business leaders, coincides with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Japan.

“As you are aware, the reason for the visit of the President is because (Japanese) Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe reiterated an invitation he has been extending to the President to come to Japan. And this invitation was in fact reiterated and accepted in the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Laos,” Consul General Marian Jocelyn Tirol-Ignacio said.

The lease of TC 30 military planes and the development assistance and investments are among the items President Duterte may seek in a bid to capitalize the country's economic and defense alliance with Japan.

Ignacio said the Philippine-Japan relationship is quite multi-faceted, covering the range of political, economic, and cultural interests that affect Filipinos working and living in Japan.

Japan has also received more than 400,000 Filipino tourists for the first half of the year alone.
A growing professional community of engineers and technical interns in the IT sector consists of 1,600 Filipinos.

“Japan is very keen to continue with the relationship that it has had with the Philippines for a long number of years. In the economic area, for example, Japan continues to be the top trading partner for the Philippines,” Ignacio said.

“On the political level, we have seen quite an interest in high-level visits. The high-level visits constitute the coming of Foreign Minister Kishida to the Philippines, and what I want to note here is that when he came, he called on the President. His visit to the Philippines was in fact, the first visit that he has ever made outside of Japan after his reassignment as Foreign Minister. So this is a very big signal of the importance that the Philippines has for Japan,” she added.

Ignacio said the country can expect several signing of letters of intent from Japanese companies during President Duterte's visit.

"We understand that there might be about eight businesses that will be signing Letters of Intents and Memorandum of Understanding and this is intended to generate investment into the Philippines so we have big companies both in the manufacturing and in the investment sector, in the agricultural sector," she said.

Meeting with the Filipino community

First in the order of President Duterte's visit is a meeting with the Filipino community in Japan.
Joseph Philip Banal, founder of the 200-member Dabawenyos' Organized Society-Japan or DOSJ, is from Davao City and came to Japan in 1994 with his family.

Banal, a staff member of the Embassy of Algeria, said his group's main objective is to help the less fortunate children of Davao. The first fund-raising project of DOSJ was the "Kadayawan sa Tokyo" held in 2011, which was able to donate a day care center in Mati, Davao Oriental.

Aurora Dobashi, founder of the Filipino English Teachers in Japan Global (FETJ Global) in 2000, has lived in Japan for almost 27 years. “I have been teaching all my life and practically I teach, I train, I organize events for Filipinos in Japan. We train them,” she said. Members of the FETJ are mostly BS Education graduates or with at least two years of college education.

Business and economic interests

Consul Ignacio said President Duterte would address the Philippine Economic Forum.

“The economic forum is important because for the first time, our Japanese business partners will have their first look at the President. He has generated a lot of interest here in Japan and as you are aware, there is a lot of investments by the Japanese in the Philippines,” she said.

Ignacio said the Japanese business partners have been waiting for the President to expound on his 10-point agenda.

On other matters, President Duterte is also expected to meet with the Japan-Philippines Parliamentarians Friendship League.

Another highlight of the President's visit is the possibility of the HARVEST loan coming into fruition.

"This is important because the focus will be on Mindanao. There is a lot of interest, I think, between the Philippines and Japan to try to extend some kind of assistance that goes beyond Metro Manila but goes all over the region. Cebu, for example, and in Mindanao, even in Davao," Ignacio said.

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