The three-day participation of President Rodrigo Duterte in the 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Nonthaburi, Thailand was fruitful. As he partook in different deliberations there, he was able to voice out the Philippines’s primary concerns, among which were commercial rows, exportation of toxic wastes, transnational crimes, climate change, and the South China Sea territorial disputes.
The 35th ASEAN Summit yielded 44 official documents, among which were the ASEAN joint statement and East Asia Summit leaders’ statement on combating the spread of illicit drugs. Before departing from Thailand on early Tuesday, November 05, 2019, the Filipino Chief Executive expressed his congratulatory remarks to the Thai state for the successful auspices of the international event.
Before flying back to the Philippines, President Duterte engaged in a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, where he conveyed the Philippines’s sympathies following the onslaught of typhoon Hagibis in Japan. Prime Minister Abe likewise expressed his condolence to the Philippines due to a series of earthquakes in Mindanao. The Filipino Head of State also thanked the Japanese leader for supporting the various projects the Philippine government executes such as the Build, Build, Build infrastructure program.
With regard to the recent incident in Bajo de Masinloc, where the Chinese coast guard blocked a Liberian ship operated by Filipinos sailing on the area, Malacañan manifested its course of action, that is, to invoke the Philippines’s sovereignty in the proper venue. The palace reasoned that to utilize said sovereignty to protest the circumstance would imperil the employment of more than 400,000 Filipino seafarers.
On a separate news, President Duterte designated Vice President Leonor “Leni” Robredo co-chairperson, Inter-agency Committee on Anti-illegal Drugs in keeping with his offer to the veep to be the state’s drug czar.
