PDP-Laban forging ties with North Korea

MANILA, Philippines — A four-man delegation from the ruling PDP-Laban party will visit their counterparts in Pyongyang, North Korea on Wednesday for the first ever direct party-to-party contact between the two countries.

Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III, president of PDP-Laban, said the three-day mission by his party mates is a “historic starting point of a new dynamic relationship with the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK).”

The delegation is composed of former Eastern Samar governor Lutgardo Barbo, PDP-Laban vice president for Visayas; Ronwald Munsayac, chairman of the party’s public information committee; Raymundo Roquero, vice chairman of the public information committee, and Evan Rebadulla.

Pimentel said a series of meetings with the WPK central committee officials would be held from July 18 to 20.

The PDP-Laban’s meeting with the WPK was arranged one year ago following months of correspondence between WPK vice chairman and head of the international department Ri Su- yong and PDP-Laban vice president for international affairs Raul Lambino.

“This is strictly a party-to-party diplomacy. The invitation was extended to us months ago, and we feel that this visit could not have come at a better time,” said Lambino, presidential adviser for Northern Luzon and CEO of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority.

“We are hoping that this ground-breaking initiative will open new doors for further talks, and new opportunities for a more meaningful relationship between our two peoples,” he added.

Lambino said the two parties would sign a memorandum of understanding “affirming their friendship and promoting greater understanding and more meaningful party-to-party talks in the future.”

Both parties have also expressed in their previous correspondence a “mutual desire for a wider, stronger and sustained relationship as we face new realities in East Asia and Southeast Asia,” he added.

Now that the reclusive North Korea is starting to show signs of opening its doors to the public, the PDP-Laban said the time is ripe for the Philippines to start improving its ties with North Korea.

The Philippines was among the first countries in the Association of Southeast Nations to have established diplomatic ties with North Korea when it was ruled by Kim Jong-il, the father of North Korean Supreme Leader and WPK chairman Kim Jong-un. 

The Philippines and North Korea established formal relations on July 12, 2000, when then foreign affairs secretary Domingo Siazon Jr. and North Korean ambassador to Thailand Jo In-chol signed a joint communique declaring the establishment of relations at the ambassadorial level.

PDP-Laban has also established formal ties with the Communist Party of China and United Russia under the Duterte administration.