Thank you very much, Mr. President, Majority Leader.
Allow this representation to share its full support, manifest its full support by way of this co-sponsorship speech.
For proposed Resolution No. 502, expressing the sense of the Senate in recognizing the enduring friendship between the Republic of the Philippines and Japan, and commemorating the 70th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The truth, Mr. President, and I share the earlier manifestations of Senator Raffy Tulfo as well as Senator Erwin Tulfo that the strong relations between Japan and the Philippines dates more than 70 years.
Like Senator Raffy and Senator Erwin, this representation is a 4th generation Nikkeijin in my mother side. My great grandmother was Haruhibaba Murakami from Nagasaki, who married, actually, an American soldier Rosser Miller Denison from Galveston, Texas. And they settled in Davao City during the American colonial rule, in the Calinan and Matina Districts of Davao City, where they had an Abaca plantation called Southern Cross.
And it was also during the American colonial rule that in Davao City, as I understand, up to 20% of the population of Davao City were Japanese immigrants, which explains why my great grandmother was settled there.
But more than the personal, Mr. President, is the long-standing trade, economic, political engagements between our country and Japan in the last 70 years and even before that. Japan is, at some point, was the number 1 official development aid allocations for the country, Mr. President, together with… until today, that is correct. Thank you for that clarification. Today, they are the largest contributors to the ODA for the country.
And the current geopolitical tensions, Mr. President, it is always good to have allies. I remember, when I was in the elementary, in La Salle Greenhills, uso na ang bullying noon. There were bullies. But because I had an older brother, who was 2 years ahead of me in La Salle Greenhills, I wasn’t bullied.
So, in the current context of international bullying, we must have older, stronger, more robust older brothers. And Japan would be one of them.
And it is critical for us to strengthen, continue to strengthen our relations with Japan and other countries, not just in the region. With the EU, with the Australia and New Zealand, Mr. President.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Japan for being part of the 14 nations that affirm and recognize the arbitral ruling in its 10th anniversary.
This, Mr. President, is a clear indication of their support for our sovereignty and our exclusive economic zone preservation and upholding our rights to exclusive economic zone.
That being said, Mr. President, in the area of Food Security, Mr. President, when we were tackling the Expanded Free Meals Program, sponsored and authored by Senator Bam Aquino, the School Meals Program of Japan is, actually, is a template that we should be able to follow.
And I’m told that one of the biggest donors, if not the biggest donors, for the World Food Program, School Meals Program in BARMM, is likewise the Japanese government. And the BARMM experience of the World Food Program was likewise, part of the deliberations in the committee hearings of the Committee on Education.
And we thank Japan and their government for supporting our School Meals Program in the BARMM and we hope to expand that to other parts of the country.
With that, Mr. President, we thank the good Ambassador, Ambassador Endo, and of course, the Japanese government. We wish him a bon voyage and we look forward to drinking sake with him in Tokyo after August, Mr. President.
Thank you very much, Mr. President.