MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.'s visit to the United States is "very timely," especially amid Beijing's continued aggression against rival claimants to territory in the South China Sea, Manila's former envoy to Washington said Wednesday.

Marcos flew to the US for a 5-day official working visit aimed at further strengthening ties of both countries.

"This is a very timely visit, especially because... during the term of [former] President [Rodrigo] Duterte, unfortunately we lost the momentum that we started to gain during the term of [the late] President Noynoy Aquino," former Philippine ambassador to the US Jose Cuisia Jr. said.

Cuisia noted that Manila recently granted wider access to American forces in Philippine military bases and facilities through the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in 2014.

"The Philippine and US were already starting to build on that agreement, on the cooperation, which meant that the US was ready to help the Philippines in the modernization of its armed forces," he told ANC's "Headstart"..

"Unfortunately, when President Duterte came in 2016, they put a halt to that. Very little was done during the 6 years of the Duterte administration," he added.

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Duterte pivoted towards China and moved away from the US, the country's oldest treaty ally in the Indo-Pacific region.

Cuisia said the meeting between Marcos and US President Joe Biden would send a strong signal to China to "desist from their provocative and unsafe conduct in the South China Sea".

China claims most of the strategic waters as its territory. Taiwan, Brunei, Vietnam and Malaysia also have overlapping claims.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines but Beijing has refused to honor its decision.

In April, Washington and Manila agreed to resume joint patrols in the South China Sea, and struck a deal to give US troops access to another 4 military bases in the Philippines, on top of 5 existing EDCA sites.

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