BEIJING – President Rodrigo Duterte has expressed gratitude to China for the assistance it extended to the Philippines in the first 12 months of his administration.

President Duterte made his appreciation in his second state of the nation address or SONA attended by members of diplomatic corps, including Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines Zhao Jianhua, last Monday in Manila.

”I travelled to China and make friends with them. The ambassador is here, Ambassador Zhao, thank you for the help,” President Duterte said.

The popular Filipino leader particularly thanked China for its commitment to build two bridges that will lessen traffic congestion in Metro Manila.

"As a matter of fact, they said, if your Congress has no money, we will give you the money, and China has committed to build two bridges to span Pasig river, free of charge," he said.

He said the Philippines might also get some money from China to build new airports.

Recently, China has donated thousands of guns worth USD7.35 million to the Philippines to help the military in its war against terrorists, including Islamist gunmen in conflict-torn Marawi City.

Under President Duterte’s leadership, the Philippines and China relationship has made a huge turnaround after Duterte decided to temporarily shelve an arbitral tribunal’s ruling in the South China Sea.

Upon invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, Duterte made two productive visits to China including one in October last year where he brought home US24 billion dollar worth of investment pledges and infrastructure projects.

It was also during his first visit that Presidents Duterte and Xi have reached a consensus to form Bilateral Consultation Mechanism (BCM) on the South China Sea.

Seven months later, the first Meeting of the China-Philippines BCM on the South China Sea was finally held in Guiyang, China. The next BCM meeting will be held later this year in Manila.

President Duterte said the Philippines has nurtured good relations with China and other countries based on his independent foreign policy.

"We have embarked on various initiatives to advance our national interest in the global community. We pursue good relations with all nations anchored on an independent foreign policy and the basic tenet of sovereignty equality, mutual respect and non-interference," Duterte said.

"We have cultivated better relations with China through bilateral dialogues and order mechanisms leading to easing of tensions between the two countries and improved negotiating environment," he added.

Under the renewed China-Philippines relations, China is also planning to invest USD3.5 billion dollar for the construction of three infrastructure projects like irrigation project, water supply dam, railways and bridges.

Philippine Ambassador to China Jose Santiago Sta. Romana said China-Philippines relations have been revived due to two-track approach that Duterte administration has taken to settle the South China Sea dispute.

He explained the one track approach involves non-contentious issues like trade, economic, infrastructures and people-to-people exchanges while another track refers to contentious issues such as sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction.

Jelly F. Musico is reporter of Philippine News Agency and is an intern at People’s Daily Online