President Rodrigo Duterte returned to Manila early Tuesday after participating in the three-day Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Thailand, where he said the 10-member states should not be pawns in a “geopolitical chessboard.”
During the summit, President Duterte noted the United States and China had been competing for supremacy in Asia Pacific, creating intense rivalry and increased uncertainty in the region.
He also maintained that his administration was expanding the horizons for Philippine diplomacy and supports an open and inclusive order in the Asia Pacific region.
“ASEAN and the rest of the Asia Pacific region are not, and should not be, mere spectators, or worse, pawns in a geopolitical chessboard, he [Duterte] said, adding they should have a say in this unfolding drama,” a press statement from Malacañang read.
The Philippines, he said, is for cooperation and not zero-sum competition.
Duterte vowed that the government would work closely with countries within and outside ASEAN, including Japan, South Korea, Russia and India, to strengthen regional mechanisms for peace and development.
“After all, the true measure of power is not coercion, but rather the ability to persuade on the strength of one’s ideals. Power is also the wisdom to exercise restraint even when outright domination is possible,” he said.
Duterte also urged ASEAN leaders during the plenary not to choose between China and the United States which he called a “strategic mistake” of the previous administrations.
Duterte also said Western countries should stop shipping their garbage marked as “recyclables” to developing Asian countries.
The President said the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia were among those that became dumping grounds for hazardous shipments.
Canada shipped more than 2,000 tons of hazardous waste to the country in 2013, prompting Duterte to issue an order to ship it back.
“If we are talking about improving the ecology of the place, the environment, then we must take into account what we dump,” Duterte said during the Special Lunch on Sustainable Development on Monday.
Meanwhile, President Duterte skipped the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Summit and the closing ceremony of the ASEAN Summit.
Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez represented the President during the RCEP meeting, a mega trade deal among the ASEAN’s 10-member states along with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.
Duterte also skipped the closing ceremony of ASEAN Summit, where he was represented by Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr.
Locsin defended the President’s absence, adding that Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Bin Mohamad also skipped the closing ceremony.
“If he didn’t catch the plane’s takeoff at 7 p.m. he’d be stuck. He left at 6 p.m. after ASEAN-Japan Summit, bilats with Japan, 3 hours of East Asia Summit — since he spoke first, he stayed til last spoke as a courtesy. Others stepped out,” Locsin posted on Twitter.
“That’s the last event, purely ceremonial and short. Jokowi had left, Mahathir too,” he added.
Vietnam will serve as ASEAN chairperson for 2020, after Thailand handed the position over at the closing ceremony of the 35th Asean Summit.
