Across the expanse of the Indo-Pacific, Oman and the Philippines convened their third bilateral forum in Manila this week, a gathering that marks not a beginning but a maturation — two nations, strategically positioned at opposite ends of a vast maritime corridor, choosing to deepen what they have quietly been building. Foreign ministers Sayyid Badr Albusaidi and Maria Theresa Lazaro inaugurated the forum under the banner of a 'Strategic Council,' a phrase that signals something more durable than diplomacy: the intention to weave governments, businesses, and communities into a relationship tha