(Bloomberg) -- Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will deliver the keynote address at Asia’s top security summit this year, giving the Southeast Asian leader a high-profile platform to speak amid tensions with Beijing in the South China Sea.

Marcos will speak at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 31, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which organizes the forum. The annual summit typically draws top military and defense officials from across the world, including those from US and China.

“The Philippines under President Marcos Jr. has elevated its contribution to regional stability and security,” IISS director-general Bastian Giegerich said in the statement. Marcos “has expanded and deepened the strategic partnerships of the Philippines across the Asia-Pacific and beyond at a time of geopolitical uncertainty,” he added.

The upcoming address shows how Marcos, the son and namesake of the late dictator, has emerged as a key figure in the region’s geopolitics. He has bolstered his country’s longstanding alliance with the US and stood up to what his government and the US had described as Chinese aggression in the South China Sea.

--With assistance from Philip J. Heijmans.

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