FILE – In this Monday, May 9, 2016 file photo, front-running presidential candidate Mayor Rodrigo Duterte gestures at photographers to move back prior to voting in a polling precinct at Daniel R. Aguinaldo National High School at Matina district, his hometown in Davao city in southern Philippines. The U.S. has upset China by sending on… Read More

By Patricia Lourdes Viray In this May 1, 2016, photo, an illuminated globe shows the South China Sea at a museum in Pathumthani, Thailand. Seeking to calm escalating tensions in the South China Sea, top generals from China and the U.S. spoke by phone and said they were ready to work out an effective mechanism… Read More

Conor Cronin,  Research Associate with the Southeast Asia Program at Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Secretary of Defense Ash Carter shakes hands with Philippine president Benigno Aquino during his visit to Manila on April 14, 2016. Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s trip to the Philippines on April 13-15 was an affirmation of U.S. support for its treaty… Read More

By Babe Romualdez Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and US Ambassador Philip Goldberg. US Ambassador Philip Goldberg hosted a small dinner at the embassy residence with friends of the United States to honor recently retired Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario — a gesture that displayed the highest regard by which the United States… Read More

Dindo Manhit, President, Stratbase-ADRi The Aquino administration has touted the 6.3 percent Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth in the fourth quarter of 2015.1 The GDP growth was primarily driven by the services sector, which grew by 7.4 percent, in comparison with 5.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014. Growth in the services sector offset… Read More

In this July 2015 file photo, Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario delivers a statement at the jurisdictional hearing of the Philippines’s case against China before the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands. PCA/Released MANILA, Philippines — Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario urged on Monday (Netherlands time) the Permanent Court of Arbitration based… Read More