Manila: President Benigno Aquino is due to visit the United States from June 6 to 8 upon the invitation of US President Barack Obama, the foreign affairs department announced Friday.

Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said high on the agenda for discussion are a broad range of bilateral, regional and global issues that reflect the multifaceted nature of the two countries’ strategic partnership

The meeting between Aquino and Obama will be the fourth since September 2010 when they attended the Association of Southeast Asian Nations-United States (Asean-US) Leaders Meeting in New York.

“The visit reflects the heightened engagement between the Philippines and the US as evidenced by the upward trajectory of high-level exchanges, including the Bilateral Strategic Dialogue visits of US congressional delegations to the Philippines, and the recent 2+2 Meetings in Washington, D.C.,” Del Rosario said in a statement.

Last April 30 the Philippines and the US as well as Japan and South Korea held their first 2+2 meeting.

The 2+2 meeting is a mechanism for consultation between the four Pacific allies in the area of defence, security as well as economic policies.

Philippines and US relations largely revolves around the 1951 Mutual Defence Treaty, a pact that binds the two countries to come to the aid of each other in the event of an attack by an external party.

Currently, Manila had been largely dependent on the US in terms of defence as the Americans had been providing training and hardware to the Philippine armed forces under the Visiting Forces Agreement.

On the other hand, the US relies on the Philippines as an ally in the Pacific as well as an outpost in the South China Sea. An agreement affirmed by the two countries recently allows US ships as well as aircraft to use military bases in the country for refuelling and refurbishing of supplies.

According to Del Rosario, US State Hillary Clinton will also tender a luncheon for Aquino in Washington.

Clinton had met Aquino in Manila last year as part of her visit to Southeast Asia.

 

Strong allies

The US and the Philippine have remained strong allies since the late 1940s.

The Philippines was a US colony from 1898 until 1946.

Relations between the two countries further drew closer recently amid the spectre of Chinese territorial ambitions in Southeast Asia.

Reports had quoted Aquino as saying that the Philippine leader may bring up the country’s territorial dispute with China over the Scarborough Shoal.

Scarborough Shoal, which is located some 120 nautical miles off Philippines’ Zambales province in Luzon in the West Philippines Sea (South China Sea).

Since April, Manila had been engaged in a standoff with Beijing over the islet that is approximately 450 nautical miles away from China.