After Duterte dissonance, Marcos set to pivot back to Washington
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11 HOURS AGO
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WASHINGTON - Newly elected Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr will soon visit Singapore and Indonesia - and probably the United States before the end of the year - providing clues as to how he will navigate the increasingly dangerous space of the US-China rivalry in which his country, a US ally, is a potential front-line state.
The signs are a departure from the truculent style of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who was notorious for sniping at the US and seemingly veering closer to China.
But President Marcos is more like his own father - the US-backed Ferdinand Marcos who was thrown out in the Philippines' storied 1986 People Power revolution - than Mr Duterte, Mr Richard Heydarian, political commentator, columnist and incoming senior lecturer at the University of the Philippines told Asian Insider.
"I think he's pursuing what we call multi-vector foreign policy, whereby he wants to keep relations with major powers… on an even keel, extracting the maximum concessions and benefits from each of these relationships, without depending on each of them or alienating each of them unnecessarily," said Mr Heydarian.