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Pag-IBIG Fund Service Advisory

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Philippine Statement delivered by Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr. on the ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference Session with China

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Philippine Statement

delivered by

THE HONORABLE TEODORO L. LOCSIN, JR.

Secretary of Foreign Affairs

ASEAN Post Ministerial Conference Session with China

03 August 2021

Excellencies, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi,

Congratulations on the 100^th anniversary of the most momentous event in modern Chinese history, the founding of the Chinese Communist Party. It is the most important event in the modern history of Asia and its future.

Let me begin with the self-evident: the quality and increasing extent of ASEAN-China relations merit elevation to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. As I said at Chongqing, geography alone argues for the elevation; reality demands it. China is or soon will be the world’s biggest economy. Its role is imperative for a global post-pandemic recovery. Its continuing success in containing and beating down the epidemic — albeit again and again, as the virus raises its head again and again in different if not deadlier and more infectious mutations. And this cannot be taken away from it when it comes to COVID response: China was the first on the scene with a manner of care and cure, the best measures of protection, and the smartest preventive strategies for containment and eradication. When critics of China said its vaccines are not as good, I asked: As compared to what? The Chinese vaccines were the first on the scene. Had many countries not made a grab for it, the death toll would be far greater. The extent might be the same; but the intensity of the infections far worse. Furthermore, no country would make a vaccine that is less than optimal considering the speed at which it had to be invented and widely deployed within China itself. No sane country, would invent  less than the best vaccine it can and use them to convince others to use it to their hurt. That would be a  weapon of mass stupidity. China has thus far shown itself as the most rational power in history. And in all this, China has never exhibited that hateful aspect of rising power: that it be at the expense of others for its own advancement. The first time we met, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi asked if I would consider signing a Memorandum on Belt and Road — whose revision by me he barely glanced at. 

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PHILIPPINE COVID-19 VACCINATION PROGRAM AS OF 28 JULY 2021

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