President Rodrigo Duterte has said several times that he has no plans to ever visit the United States, but it appears that he’s now mulling over the possibility of visiting the treaty ally he once famously called “lousy.”
His spokesman Salvador Panelo today said the president has “to ponder over” the invitation sent to him by American President Donald Trump to attend the ASEAN-U.S. Summit slated to be held in Las Vegas in March. But while the president is considering the invitation, he is also keenly aware that some American politicians aren’t exactly part of his fan club.
“He doesn’t want to go there, and when he’s there some U.S. senators would be unhappy seeing him there because he’s supposed to be number one on the list,” Panelo said in a press conference in Malacañang Palace, referring to recent U.S. legislation aimed at barring Philippine officials implicated in the detention of Duterte critic and Senator Leila de Lima.
“Number two, he said he doesn’t even know if the U.S. will issue him a visa. [He said] ‘And if I’m issued a visa, I do not know when I arrive in the States, [if] I would be allowed entry.'”
“In other words, the ball has been thrown to them. They have to do something about it,” Panelo added.
Read: Trump ‘really wants Duterte’ to attend US-ASEAN Summit, says Foreign Secretary Locsin
Of course, that would assume that Duterte actually wants to go to Vegas, despite, y’know, the existence of a separate U.S. Senate resolution asking Trump to invoke the Global Magnitsky Act against him. The act allows U.S. authorities to impose travel and financial sanctions on human rights violators.
And indeed, it looks like the U.S. hasn’t been shy about flexing the new travel ban — Senator Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa (a former police chief who was responsible for leading Duterte’s bloody drug war) announced yesterday that his American visa had been canceled.
“When I look at his responses, it appears he really wants to go,” Panelo said of Duterte. “But how can he go if that’s the condition that you are saying in America? He’s letting the U.S. government decide, ‘Are you inviting me or not?'”
And speaking of de la Rosa, Panelo also downplayed the seriousness of the cancellation of the senator’s American visa.
“It’s the prerogative of the state to disallow or to allow [entry to] the citizen of any country,” he said.
“I understand, according to Senator de la Rosa, the embassy told him if he wants to renew, he can reapply. For me, it’s a non-issue,” Panelo added.
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