Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday made a surprise stop in the Philippines to meet President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr at Malacanang Palace, where both leaders voiced their commitment to sovereignty and a global rules-based order.
Zelensky told Marcos Jnr after their brief meeting: “Thank you so much, Mr President. We’re happy to be first time in the Philippines. I’m sure not the last,” according to an official palace news release.
The Ukrainian president thanked the Philippines for supporting Ukraine’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty”. “Thank you so much for your ‘big word’ and clear position about us, about this Russia occupation of our territories, and thank you on your support,” he was quoted as saying.
In turn, the palace said Marcos Jnr told Zelensky it was “very good news” that Ukraine would be opening an embassy in Manila this year “because we would very much like to continue to help, in any way that the Philippines can, through multilateral [efforts] and the UN”.
The Philippine leader pledged to “do all we can to promote peace and to bring an end to the fighting”, referencing Ukraine’s war with Russia.
“It will be a difficult road to find our way back to a situation that is morally acceptable not only to Ukraine, but to the rest of the world,” he said.
Marcos Jnr said the Philippines “has been trying to promote the continuing adherence to international rules-based order” according to the palace news release, in an oblique reference to Manila’s repeated assertion that China should adhere to the “international rules-based order”, especially in their ongoing territorial dispute in the South China Sea.
A 2016 international arbitral ruling, which was rejected by Beijing, found that China’s maritime claim – denoted by a nine-dash line enclosing much of the South China Sea including the disputed Second Thomas and Scarborough shoals – was without basis under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Monday’s meeting drew mixed reviews from analysts. Retired Supreme Court associate justice Antonio Carpio told This Week in Asia he was “not surprised” by Zelensky’s sudden visit. .
“In Europe, Russia is trying to overturn the foundational UN Charter principle that all disputes between states must be settled peacefully, outlawing the use of force or the threat of force to settle such disputes,” Carpio said, explaining why the visit was in the Philippines’ national interest.
“Russia is overturning this principle by invading and annexing a part of Ukraine to settle a territorial dispute,” he said. “In the South China Sea, China is using threat of force to settle territorial and maritime disputes with China’s neighbours.”
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Carpio, who has made the South China Sea dispute a personal crusade, said “both Russia and China are trying to overturn the foundational principle of the UN Charter that ‘right is might’”, a concept that he said “led to two world wars”.
Lucio Blanco Pitlo, a research fellow at the Asia-Pacific Pathways to Progress think tank in Manila, said Zelensky probably saw the Philippines “as the most forward leaning in supporting Ukraine’s cause”.
He noted that both Zelensky and Marcos Jnr had “made direct and indirect remarks vs China” at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore over the weekend.
“Welcoming Zelensky may bolster the Philippines’ image as a steadfast supporter of international law and norms, notably of the inviolability of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which are under siege in Ukraine due to Russia’s assault,” Pitlo said.
The Ukrainian president travelled to the Philippines directly from the Shangri-La Dialogue, where he had called on Asian countries to join a June 15 peace summit in Switzerland.
At a press briefing on the sidelines of the Singapore forum, he accused China of pressuring other countries to boycott the Switzerland peace summit. Beijing has not responded to his accusations.
A small contingent of government officials greeted Zelensky, led by Marcos Jnr, followed by his cousin House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez and foreign secretary Enrique Manalo.
The Ukrainian president – wearing a signature casual outfit of black shirt and khaki cargo pants, attire that would typically be banned in Malacanang Palace – was accorded an honour guard.
Zelensky had expected to talk with Marcos Jnr at the Shangri-La Dialogue, but the Philippine leader left after giving a keynote speech on Friday night, before the Ukrainian president arrived.
Monday’s meeting marked the second time Zelensky and Marcos Jnr have discussed the Ukraine war. They had a phone conversation about it early last year, according to a February 1 post by Marcos Jnr on social media platform X.
“The Philippines has been very clear in our support for the resolutions in the United Nations that were passed upon the onset of the war in Ukraine,” Marcos Jnr said in May last year during the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ Asean Leadership Forum in Washington. “And that we respect the sovereignty and territoriality of every single nation in the world.”
Marcos Jnr called Ukraine’s situation “incredibly critical” and said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations “are in full agreement” over the need to protect the sovereign rights of each nation, calling the conflict in Ukraine “something that is really anachronistic in the modern world”.
The Philippine president’s remarks over the past year contrast starkly with those when he was running for the presidency. In March 2022, he had declared during a forum that the Philippines should side with no one in the war between Ukraine and Russia.
“I don’t think there’s a need to take a stand. We are not involved except for our nationals,” he said at the time, noting that Manila’s main concern was how to repatriate its nationals living in Ukraine.
