The foreign policy of the Duterte administration risks alienating its major economic partners and creating an “unwelcoming” environment to foreign investors, a private think tank said Wednesday.
Dindo Manhit, president of Stratbase-ADR Institute for Strategic and International Studies, said President Rodrigo Duterte’s “independent” foreign policy seems to realign the Philippines’ friendships with other countries.
“While the president’s mandate to define the country’s approach to foreign relations is unassailable, the administration should nevertheless reconsider its strategy in terms of potentially alienating established economic and security partners,” Manhit said in a forum in Makati City.
“The Philippines should maintain its good relations with trusted friends and pursue constructive relations with all of its neighbors, in both word and deed,” Manhit said.
Manhit said an unwelcoming atmosphere in the Philippines could easily dampen the country’s economic relationships.
“The government’s new stance must be calibrated to ensure that it does not compromise the administration’s ten-point plan and the Philippines’ overall economic security,” Manhit said.