The administration is not totally discounting the possibility of President Duterte visiting the White House, as the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said it is still awaiting formal invitation from Washington before a decision could be made, the DFA’s spokesman disclosed
on Monday.
At the sidelines of a news briefing in Malacañang, DFA Acting Spokesman Robespierre L. Bolivar said the Palace and the White House have yet to discuss about the possibility of Duterte meeting his United States counterpart Donald J. Trump anytime soon.
“We have yet to receive a formal invitation from the White House,” Bolivar said. “If a formal invitation comes and if the President accepts it, we will formally convey the acceptance and then we will work out the diplomatic details after that.”
Bolivar noted that Duterte can only accept or reject an invitation if it comes under the standard diplomatic practice, which does not include a mere phone- call conversation between two leaders. But the foreign affairs acting spokesman admitted Manila is looking forward to Washington’s invitation.
Trump called Duterte on the night of the Asean Summit on April 30. Notably, the Philippine leader on the same day said he would plead Trump to not go to war with North Korea.
Citing the inevitable damage of a nuclear crackdown, Duterte played the peacemaker role in the row between Pyongyang and Washington.
“Who am I to say that he should stop? But I will say, ‘Mr. President [Trump], just see to it there is no war because my region [Asean] will suffer immensely—the first fallout would be us and Asia.’ It’s very near and very dangerous,” Duterte said in a previous news briefing.
“I’m sure President Trump by now is cautioning his military to just hang on there and not to start something that they cannot control. And it behooves upon America who wields the biggest stick just to really be prudent and patient,” he added.
Diplomatic relations between the Philippines and the US somewhat dampened last year, when Duterte verbally lambasted former President Barack Obama for criticizing his war against drugs.
On the contrary, Trump expressed support for Duterte’s brutal crackdown, which already claimed thousands of lives and gathered international condemnation.
The White House has since defended Trump’s decision to invite Duterte, saying the issues facing the world right now, particularly the development in North Korea, were so serious the US needs to cooperate with its partners in the region.