ISRAELI Ambassador to the Philippines Ilan Fluss discussed the partnership between the Philippines and Israel and what programs are being undertaken in a virtual interview with The Manila Times.

The Manila Times (TMT): Could you give us an overview of Philippine-Israeli bilateral relations? What is the direction of our bilateral relations?

Ambassador Fluss: I would like first to say that I want to congratulate The Manila Times for its anniversary — 124 years is long, many years. So, congratulations.

Generally speaking, the relations are, I would say, very good and warm. Historically, we always remember 1928, the Philippines giving a safe haven to 1,300 Jewish refugees trying to escape Nazi rule where most countries, not all countries, closed the borders for refugees.

And the Philippines during the time of President [Manuel] Quezon showed the gesture of giving the message of helping those who are in need. And it is something that we appreciate very much.

And the second thing I would mention, which is very important to us historically, is 1947 when the Philippines voted in support of the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, voted in the United Nations. This gives the foundation for the political foundation for the establishment of the State of Israel.

For this reason, until today, Filipinos do not need a visa to enter Israel and I think this is one of the reasons why we are seeing a really very good flow of people, movement of people between our two countries because it is easier with no visa.

Hopefully, when we see direct flights between our two countries, and I am very optimistic it will happen sometime next year, I think Manila-Tel Aviv will be a very busy line.

First of all, there is always a very good sense of people feeling very comfortable, very interested, very warm to each other I think it comes from similar values — the importance of family, value of family, value of charity, of helping each other, the community, I think these are the issues that we share between our societies, our two countries.

Today, we just had a JCM, the joint committee meeting, which is an annual political meeting between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel and the DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) here. We did an overview of the relations.

And generally, things are going well between our two countries — friendly, warm, open discussions.

TMT: In terms of trade and commerce, are there new avenues that we can explore to further enhance our economic cooperation?

Ambassador Fluss: I’ll say my vision as the Israeli Ambassador to the Philippines is to create bridges of innovation and technology between our two countries, which means one side to transfer the knowledge, what we’re doing in Israel.

Because Israel is known as a global hub of innovation. I want to share this experience and to help the Philippines in creating its own system of innovation where you can have local innovation, entrepreneurship. And to support that, I’m working on both government-level and private sector, academia, and also introducing relevant Israeli technologies that can support the development process here in the Philippines.

In this regard, we had a delegation in the Philippines last week of companies in the agricultural sector who came to a big agricultural expo in Davao, which is the “food basket of the Philippines.” We participated there. I was there in Davao last week.

There is a lot of interest in Israeli technologies and this is also part of the vision and one of the main goals of the President (Ferdinand Marcos Jr.) is enhancing agricultural productivity and food security, and we are trying to support these efforts. The State of Israel is a leader in agriculture technologies.

So, for one side the economy and trade, so more business delegations. We are also looking at another delegation coming to the Philippines on the area of water. We are also planning to have an exhibition on Israeli innovation in the Philippines, which will be presented here. We have Israeli experts to talk about Israeli innovations.

During the pandemic two years ago, the Israeli Embassy expanded and we opened a trade and economic office in the embassy which shows Israel is now investing more in promoting the relations between our two countries in this sector.

Last June, Secretary of DTI (Department of Trade and Industry) [Ramon] Lopez visited Israel and signed three agreements. One on the protection and promotion of investments, the other one is establishing a joint economic committee, which will meet once a year to analyze the two governments’ economic cooperation, and the third one is cooperation in the area of innovation with the Isreali Innovation Institute.

TMT: In terms of defense cooperation, are there new discussions to help the Philippines further improve its defense and military capabilities in terms of training or weapons upgrade?

Ambassador Fluss: Two years ago, again in the midst of the pandemic, we opened a new office at the embassy of a defense attaché, a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, which I think is a very strong message that there is an interest in the Israeli side to work together with the Philippine government as a reliable partner in supporting the modernization program of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) and being really a reliable partner, a trusted partner.

In the last few years, Israel has become one of the sources of defense system, defense technologies for the AFP, also for the [Philippine] Coast Guard, also for the [Philippine National] Police. And we are proud to contribute to peace and security in the Philippines and to take part in those efforts of the modernization program.

A few weeks ago, we witnessed the arrival of the first two Shaldag, a fast boat for the [Philippine] Navy. There will be nine altogether and the last ones will actually be assembled here in the Philippines. So, this is an element of transfer of technology know-how and work to the Philippines which we are very proud of.

The Shaldag is a fast boat, a speed boat which is for patrol, response. It has all kinds of systems on it. It is small and fast.

So, Israeli systems are here, and we are in discussions with the new administration on the Israeli participation in the next modernization program. And we are in serious discussions on continuing Israeli programs.

TMT: The Philippines owes a lot to Israel when it comes to training Filipino college students taking up agriculture. Are there new activities for us to further develop our agricultural sector to ensure food security for Filipinos?

Ambassador Fluss: We are developing more programs here. The most important is the agriculture internship program in Israel where we sent 500 Filipinos who were coming from the farming sector. They are going to Israel for 11 months for a technical training program. They work for five days a week. They study one day a week, one day a week [they] rest.

They work for the five days with farmers, getting exposed to the Israeli technologies, to the Israeli best practices and to the Israeli mentality of commercial farming. The farmer in Israel, he has to make money. He has to work as a business. So, he has a business model and a business plan. It’s not like backyard farming or small-scale farming. You have to bring money, you have to understand the market, you need to handle technologies for postharvest.

So, it is not only technology. It is also planning. It is understanding the market. It is different practices. It is a lot of knowledge. So, they are learning a lot. And I think it is more of helping them change their mindsets. And after 11 months, they are also able to save some money. And the day they come back here in the Philippines, they become agropreneurs and start their own agricultural entrepreneurship or join the government.

This program is implemented in partnership with Tesda (Technical Education and Skills Training Administration) and we’re seeing that some of them are coming back into Tesda. And Tesda is introducing areas that the students have learned. They are helping the students implement it in the Tesda centers and they can teach other young farmers those practices.

Just now, the last batch is going to leave for Israel I think towards the end of this week. I’m very proud of this program. Also, Israeli experts are sharing the knowledge and the know-how with Filipinos. Things are moving nicely. I would like to see even more. But these things take time.

We had a delegation from UST (University of Sto. Tomas) to Israel and we had an event in Davao where Israel is the only country to be part of the “Start Up Week” in Davao supporting startups. We had networking of innovators from the start up community.

So, we are really looking forward to doing much more for innovation because I do believe that economic innovation is very important. And we are here, Israel is here as a partner to work with the Philippines. I believe a lot in the private sector. I am helping the private sector. Also, I believe a lot in working with local governments.

TMT: Is there a plan to invite President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to visit Israel in the near future?

Ambassador Fluss: He has been to Israel in the past. He has started his presidency and he has his priorities. We’ll be happy to host the President in Israel. We saw that the visit of President [Rodrigo] Duterte in 2018 really brought a dramatic change to our relations.

So, I believe such a visit will be a strong message that will really facilitate the relations [between our two countries]. I think we will see many more initiatives. We have to wait and see.