Japan Coast Guard (JCG) Commandant Admiral Seguchi Yoshio visited the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) headquarters ahead of Prime Minister's Shigeru Ishiba's official visit in Manila on Wednesday.

During his visit, Seguchi and the members of his delegation were welcomed by PCG officials headed by Coast Guard Commandant, Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan. This is Sekiguchi's first visit to the PCG.

Following their meeting, Gavan and Seguchi conducted a ship tour onboard the 97-meter multi role response vessel (MRRV) BRP Teresa Magbanua, one of its largest vessels acquired by the PCG from Japan in 2022.

As part of the tour, the two coast guard officials also witnessed the demonstration of arresting techniques and procedures learned by the PCG from its continued training with its Japanese counterpart.

In an interview with reporters, Gavan noted that the outcome of their bilateral meeting was "good" and both coast guards "agreed to have more people-to-people exchanges."

"Earlier, you saw the arresting techniques. Actually, they have a mobile cooperative team that travels around Southeast Asia and trains coastguards.This shows that our fellow coastguards in the region are getting stronger," he said.

"We will visit them and they will visit us here.We will continue to train more officers in Japan.Earlier, you also noticed that it can be one of the innovations in the cooperative teams that are conducting training now.Maybe the Philippine Coast Guard personnel that they trained will also join the trainers that are going around," he added.

The PCG Commandant also emphasized the importance of the visit of Seguchi to the PCG headquarters stressing Japan's invaluable support to the PCG in the past years.

"I'd like to emphasize that when the Philippine Coast Guard was separated from the Philippine Navy in 1998,Japan was the first country that approached us and helped us to stand as a new Coast Guard," he said.

"The Human Resource Development Program of the Coast Guard has been supported by Japan since the time we were separated.For 10 years, they have been developing our workforce. So, the visit of the Commandant of the Japan Coast Guard is very reassuring to us and the cooperation of both coast guards are further strengthened," he added.

Seguchi visited the PCG headquarters hours before the arrival of Japan Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Manila.

Gavan expressed optimism that new opportunities for the PCG could be developed with the visit of Ishiba in their headquarters on Wednesday.

"We are very excited.We feel more reassured that the Prime Minister himself of Japan, one of the principal supporters of the Philippine Coast Guard,will be coming over to see for himself how we're doing here," he said.

"We are very, very optimistic that new things, new opportunities could be developed with the visit of the Prime Minister of Japan tomorrow," he added. Robina Asido/DMS