Duterte missed a scheduled one-on-one with Obama, who postponed the meeting after the brash Philippine leader called him a “son of a bitch” in a pre-departure speech and threatened to swear at him if the US leader raised concerns over Duterte’s bloody crackdown on illegal drugs.
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“Having said that, I don’t see any drastic change in the long-standing friendly relations between the Philippines and the United States”.
“Speaking in Laos at the end of the second of two Asian summits, Obama said the tycoon’s lack of leadership credentials was exposed whenever he spoke and American voters were aware of that”.
An Indonesian diplomat said Duterte held up a picture of Filipinos killed in colonial times to underscore his point.
“You actually have to know what you are talking about and you actually have to have done your homework”, Obama said Thursday.
The president made global headlines with his controversial comment on US President Barack Obama, which prompted Washington’s cancellation of a bilateral between the two world leaders.
It ended with a simple message from President Duterte: “In 2017, we, the Filipinos, are proud to welcome you to 7,107 islands of beauty, wonder and fun that will make a year of memories last a lifetime”.
Obama’s remarks came at the end of a grueling nine-day trip that took the him to Laos and China following US stops in Nevada, Hawaii and Midway Atoll, a USA -controlled coral reef in the Pacific Ocean.
Referring to the remarks that Obama might have made on the questions of human rights, especially about the methods used in the fight against drug trafficking, Rodrigo Duterte had described Monday to the Media his United States counterpart as a “son of bitch”.
There are an estimated 9,000 overseas Filipino workers in Indonesia composed mostly of teachers and other professionals, the report pointed out.
After the flap over Duterte’s earlier remarks, he and Obama met briefly on the sidelines of the Laos meetings and shook hands. The White House, however, cancelled the talks after Duterte’s profanity-laced rant after being asked about the possibility of discussing human rights concerns with Obama.
Duterte responded to the criticism by threatening to pull the Philippines out of the global body.
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pushed for a drug-free region during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Vientiane, Laos, his first worldwide meeting as chief executive.
