MANILA: Malacanang is confident that Washington’s commitments to Manila under President Joe Biden will continue under the administration of President-elect Donald Trump.

The Philippines expects U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific and support for its treaty ally amid South China Sea tensions to remain steady under Donald Trump, driven by bipartisan resolve in Washington, its ambassador to the U.

The Philippines is prone to storms and sees an average of 20 a year.

Villagers in northern Philippine provinces were forced to evacuate on Wednesday as a powerful typhoon approached the nation still reeling from a recent storm that left at least 182 dead and missing and emergency shelters crammed with displaced people.

Typhoon Yinxing made landfall in the Philippines on Thursday afternoon, bringing dangerous winds and extreme rainfall to Luzon, the nation’s most populous island. The storm had maximum sustained winds of about 144 miles per hour,