Beyond the Hague: PH-Netherlands’ 75 years of diplomatic relations

This week is momentous. The pre-trial or confirmation of charges of Rodrigo Duterte in the International Criminal Court (ICC) begins today, after efforts to delay it by the defense counsel, and is expected to last till February 27. (You can check out the schedule here.)

All eyes will be on The Hague. In the past few years, we’ve had a connection with this city where the ICC is located and where Duterte has been in detention. Hundreds of overseas Filipino supporters of Duterte, those living in Europe, have made a pilgrimage to The Hague, showing their solidarity in a fiesta-like atmosphere, spreading their picnic blankets and sharing meals. Sometimes, they carry placards and protest against the Philippine government for handing their Tatay Digong to the ICC.

Family members, including Vice President Sara Duterte and her siblings, have made frequent visits to the ICC Detention Center in Scheveningen, a seaside district of The Hague. Philippine media have chronicled these, squeezing stories out of personal conversations of the children with their father.

The Hague, known as the “International City of Peace and Justice,” hosts other international organizations including the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) and the International Court of Justice. In 2016, the Philippines’ maritime case against China was resolved in our favor by an international arbitral court in The Hague.

Our ties with the Netherlands, however, go beyond these historic judicial connections. It is little known that we’re commemorating the 75th anniversary of our diplomatic relations this year. I wanted to know more about our low-profile links to the country known for its tulips, windmills, amazing art museums, and cheese, so I asked our ambassador to the Netherlands, Eduardo Malaya, the sum of our countries’ relations.

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Here’s our Q&A, via email, edited for brevity:

Q: What are the anchors of our bilateral relations?

A:  The long-standing significant trade and investment engagements between the two countries, and the presence of some 22,000 Filipino seafarers on board Dutch-flagged vessels. In recent years, the scope of the relations has significantly expanded, now encompassing agriculture, water management, defense industry cooperation, and cybersecurity, as well as their shared interest in adherence to the rule of law in international relations, and particularly, the law of the sea.

For context: Although not generally known, the Netherlands has been an important economic partner of the Philippines. For the past five years, it has been the country’s second largest trading partner and export market in Europe. The trade relations have been steadily growing, with a consistent annual increase of 10% over the last five years.

The Netherlands has also been among the top five investor countries in the Philippines and often the number one among the 27-member European Union. It ranked first among the Philippines’ top sources of foreign investments in the past 12 years. Some 130 Dutch companies are doing business in the Philippines.

Government-to-government engagements have kept apace and become more extensive. Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot visited Manila in October 2023, the first official visit of a foreign minister in 37 years.    

Q: The Hague hosts major international organizations that promote and deliver justice. Do these make a significant part of our relations with the Netherlands?  

The impacts on the Philippines of the decisions and other actions of some of these institutions, notably the PCA and the ICC, have been consequential and well-documented. The Hague has been referred to, in the words of [former] UN Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, as the “legal capital of the world.” 

These intergovernmental organizations, though hosted by the Netherlands, operate independently of the latter. The Philippine Embassy has been proactively engaged with many of them and has had leadership roles in The Hague-based international organizations in recent years including the PCA, the Asia Group in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and The Hague Conference on Private International Law.

The thrust of the Embassy in its engagements with the international legal organizations has been to harness the best practices and immense intellectual resources available in The Hague.

Netherlands in the Indo-Pacific

Q: When it comes to security, the Philippines and the Netherlands have said they eye cooperation in defense, particularly in naval shipbuilding. Any update?

A “Memorandum of Understanding on Naval Defense Industry Cooperation between the Department of National Defense of the Republic of the Philippines and the Minister of Defence of the Kingdom of the Netherlands” was signed by Philippine Defense Undersecretary Salvador Melchor Mison Jr. and the Netherlands’ Vice Admiral Jan Willem Hartman in November 2023 in Rotterdam. (This is in pursuit of the interest of Netherland’s Damen Naval to participate in the AFP’s modernization program and sell frigates.)

Q: Has the Netherlands sent any of its frigates to visit Manila and patrol in the West Philippine Sea? Are there plans for this year?

The Netherlands navy deploys a ship to the Indo-Pacific every two years or so. In 2021, the Royal Netherlands Navy frigate HNLMS Evertsen joined the UK Carrier Strike Group, led by Britain’s Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, in its deployment to the Indo-Pacific.

In 2024, the Dutch frigate HNLMS Tromp traveled to the Indo-Pacific and had port calls in India, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Republic of Korea, and Japan.

The deployment is in line with the Netherlands’ Indo-Pacific Strategy which, among others, recognizes the increasing importance of the Indo-Pacific region amid the rapidly shifting geopolitical and geoeconomic relations. The Netherlands gives high regard to the region as two-thirds of crude oil transport and a third of global freight traffic passes through Indo-Pacific waters, hence more active engagements will promote Dutch and European economic and political interests in the region.

The Netherlands is expected to dispatch a frigate to the region this year. It will be in tandem with another European navy.

That ends our Q&A. Let’s see if the Dutch frigate will make the Philippines one of its port calls.

Let me know what you think. You can email me at [email protected].

Till next newsletter!