Duterte sent his Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay to lead the Filipino delegation in ASEAN’s meetings with India and the U.S. and in the East Asia Summit, EFE news reported.
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“They exchanged pleasantries”, added officials of the Obama Adminstration.
Obama cancelled a planned meeting over the insults, but later briefly met with Duterte on the sidelines of a regional summit in Laos, urging him to conduct his crime war “the right way”.
Before traveling to Laos for regional summits, Duterte said Monday that Obama should not question him about the rising death toll in his war on drugs, which has been criticized overseas and by Duterte’s opponents in the Philippines.
US President Barack Obama and Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte had a brief face-to-face encounter, days after a very public spat.
Philippine ambassador to Laos Marciano Paynor said the tiff with Obama was part of a learning curve for Duterte, who needed a chance to make the transition from being a city mayor to a head of state.
However, he said the U.S.is seeking to promote principles that rise above any individual religion, nationality or race. “I think it seems to be just a habit, a way of speaking for him”, Obama said.
During a press conference in Laos Thursday morning, the president was asked if he wanted to defend his legacy following Trump’s latest attacks Wednesday night.
Mr Obama, closing out his final presidential trip to Asia, said his meetings with foreign leaders during the trip had illustrated that governing is “serious business” requiring knowledge, preparation and thought-out policies that can actually be implemented. He said it was a mutually agreed meeting, although he didn’t have details of what was discussed.
Pacquiao, elected to the Senate this year and a political ally of Duterte, did not hesitate to wade into the row on Thursday as he spoke to journalists in Beverly Hills.
The toll in his government’s two-month war on drugs reached 2,400 last week, with police saying about 900 people died in police operations, and the rest were “deaths under investigation”, a term human rights activists call a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings. This led the White House to cancel the scheduled meet between the two leaders.
Malacañang officials have confirmed that Duterte will attend the closing ceremony of the summit yesterday afternoon.
“I got really angry about these threats over this human rights issue”.
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On Friday afternoon in Shangri-La Hotel in Jakarta, Duterte insisted that he did not use foul language to describe Obama.
