PRESIDENT MARCOS: Good morning, General and I am very happy to be able to welcome you to Manila and to the Philippines for your visit to us, that you have come today.

Despite the very, shall we say, the very quiet visit that you have made to us today, this is actually a very significant point in the history between our two countries — between Vietnam and the Philippines.

The Philippines and Vietnam have enjoyed good relations and we have continued to progress in those relationships, whereas before comprised only of our diplomatic connection. We now talk about defense cooperation, security cooperation, maritime cooperation, and certainly, on the area of trade as well.

Your visit, I think, will serve as a further impetus, further push to increase that — the depth and the range of our relationship.

GENERAL PHAN VAN GIANG: Excellency, President, thank you very much for spending the time to receive our delegation, the official visit to the Philippines upon the invitation from Excellency, Secretary of National Defense of the Philippines .

And it’s my great honor to convey the greetings and best wishes from our senior leaders from Vietnam, namely General Secretary and State President To Lam, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh and the Chairman of the National Assembly Tran Thanh Man.

And from our side, we highly value and appreciate the State Visit to Vietnam back in January 2024 and that visit opened up new opportunities to further promote and innovate the strategic partnership between Vietnam and the Philippines in various areas that you just mentioned.

Comparing the capital City of Manila as well as the Philippines back in [inaudible] when I attended the [inaudible] of the defense forces [inaudible] in Manila. I myself can witness and can see the significant changes as well as the dynamics of the capital City of Manila.

Vietnam and the Philippines are two neighboring countries [inaudible] and we have our very good interactions and discussions between our two forces, especially the navy-to-navy discussions and the [inaudible] the Philippines and [unclear] of Vietnam.

We have the annual [inaudible] between our [inaudible] on those two islands. And this is a very good symbol of [inaudible] between Vietnam and the Philippines in order to handle all the [inaudible].

From Vietnam, especially the Ministry of National Defense of Vietnam, I value and appreciate the keynote address [inaudible].

And we believe that as responsible member of the ASEAN Community, the Philippines will further play [inaudible] a very [inaudible] to contribute more to the ASEAN Community.

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