Obama filled the hole in his schedule by meeting with South Korean President Park Geun-hye in a display of unity a day after North Korea fired three ballistic missiles.
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ON the eve of his first scheduled appearance on a world stage, President Duterte found himself in a confrontational situation with President Obama of the United States (US) when Obama cancelled their meeting on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Vientiane, Laos.
The White House said the remarks weren’t constructive and prompted called off the meeting, which had been slated for Tuesday. (The two informally met Wednesday at a dinner of world leaders and exchanged niceties.) But long after the summit, the US faces a much trickier task in dealing with the Philippine leader.
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The newly elected leader who was elected to office with a landslide victory earlier this year had pledged to kill 1, 00,000 people in an unprecedented war to take on the criminals across the country. The short meeting is said to have helped clear the air after Duterte’s distasteful comments.
“They were the last persons to leave the holding room”, the Philippine foreign secretary Perfecto Yasay said, insisting that the countries’ relationship was “firm, very strong”.
Declaring a “moral obligation” to heal the wounds of a secret war, President Barack Obama on Tuesday pledged help to clear away the 80 million unexploded bombs the USA dropped on Laos a generation ago – more than 10 for every one of the country’s 7 million people. This attitude has been reflected on the campaign trail, where Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton also seemed more focused on the insult than on Duterte’s track record and emphasized the positive relationship the United States and the Philippines typically enjoy.
“I’m very proud of the work you are doing”, Obama told Silamphan.
CBS News’ Mark Knoller reports a White House official confirmed that Mr. Obama had a brief discussion with President Duterte before the ASEAN Gala Dinner. He aimed a vulgarity at the President, which the White House could not stand for.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte was absent from the Asean-United States summit today.
But Matthew Goodman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, told VOA he thought Obama’s legacy in Asia hinged on whether Congress ratified the TPP agreement: “The economic part of the pivot is essential to the overall strategy and so if we can’t get TPP ratified by Congress, that is going to undermine the view of his overall legacy in the region in the political, military and social sides as well”. “Do not just throw questions”, he said, finishing by declaring, “Putang ina, I will swear at you in that forum” – a Tagalog phrase for “son of a b–h”.
Laos President Bounnhang Vorachith greets (from left) Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak, and Myanmar leader Aung Sun Suu Kyi during the opening ceremony of the ASEAN Summit in Ventiane, Laos.
Duterte expressed regret for his word choice the next day and thanked Obama, in a written statement, for the continued support of his country.
Duterte may find it amusing to use an anti-gay slur to refer to the US ambassador and to insult Obama’s mother, but his comments play to a potent strain of anti-U.S. sentiment – sentiment that could shift the balance of power in the South China Sea.
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The inception of the community that came in line with the bloc’s consistent push for “One Vision, One Identity and One Community” marked a major milestone in the integration of Southeast Asian states and the East Asian region as a whole, analysts said.
