The volatile geopolitical situation and fallout from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan underlines the importance of the U.S.-Philippines relationship, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Saturday.

Marcos, meeting U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the presidential palace in Manila, said his visit was timely, but he believed Pelosi's trip "did not raise the intensity" of a situation that was already volatile.

Blinken is the highest-ranking U.S. official to travel to the Philippines since the inauguration of Marcos, the son of the late strongman who Washington helped flee into exile in Hawaii after a 1986 "people power" uprising.