Six years after the arbitral ruling in favor of the Philippines was awarded, "China and the maritime dispute in the South China Sea remain to be the biggest foreign policy challenge for the Philippines".

Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez said, quoting Renato De Castro, the trustee and program convenor of Stratbase ADR Institute, in a forum in Makati City on Tuesday.

Romualdez noted that the Philippine government is remaining ''optimistic that the best way forward is still diplomacy."

"Nevertheless, we are prepared to deter aggression. We believe in the merit of finishing negotiations on a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea that claimant states, including China, must agree on," he said.

"All parties or stakeholders must support this process and exercise restraint and cooperation to prevent tensions from escalating further. As pointed out by Professor (Dindo) Manhit, our foreign and security policies must not only be clear and cohesive, they must also be adaptive and resilient to potential threats, driven by national interests," he added.

Romualdez expressed hope that the "contentious issues surrounding the Indo-Pacific would be resolved in a peaceful manner."

"Even as we adopt an independent foreign policy that allows us to engage in mutually beneficial relationships that uphold common strategic interests, based on the recognition that each nation’s sovereignty is indisputable," he said.

In an ambush interview with reporters, former Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, one of the architects who brought the country's maritime disputes with China to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, expressed confidence that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. "will push through of what he have said" about using the 2016 arbitral ruling to assert the country's sovereign rights in the West Philippines Sea.

"I think it is absolutely the correct thing to do and I think we're counting on it greatly because it is actually the first declaration he had made as soon as he was elected. So we have confidence that he will push through what he has said which he considered of great importance," he said. Robina Asido/DMS