MANILA, Philippines — The Philippines reaffirmed its affinity with fellow Pacific nations and highlighted closer collaboration with them, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said over the weekend.
The Philippine delegation to the 55th Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Meeting (55PIFLM)
shared challenges of archipelagic states such as climate change and a changing development financing landscape, the DFA said.
The Philippines maintains four resident embassies in the Pacific — in Port Moresby, Suva, Canberra and Wellington. The Philippine embassy in Tokyo has concurrent jurisdiction over Palau, Micronesia and Marshall Islands.
The DFA said the Philippines presented "pathways for deeper regional integration through the Philippine-Pacific Initiative, launched by President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. in Manila in 2024."
The President designated DFA Undersecretary Leo Herrera-Lim as Special Envoy to the forum held in Koror, Palau, from August 30 to September 4 with the theme “Building Economies: Life. Action. Unity.”
The forum gathered the leaders of 18 Pacific nations, namely Australia, Cook Islands, Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Naoero, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
In his remarks during Leaders Dialogue with Forum Dialogue Partners (FDPs), Herrera-Lim "built upon the mutual affinity between the Philippines and Pacific Island nations," the DFA said.
He said that the core of the Philippines’ engagement with the Pacific centers on key areas of resilience under the Philippines-Pacific initiative — health; food security; capacity building and human capital development; disaster preparedness and climate action; environment; as well as energy, maritime and ocean governance space.
"These realities demand that we rethink how we mobilize partnerships to sustain development gains and build unbreakable resilience into our communities," Herrera-Lim said.
"The Philippines is fully committed to deepening these partnerships. In 2024, we launched the Philippines-Pacific Initiative, through which we offer tangible cooperation across key areas of resilience,” he said.
