President Rodrigo Duterte will depart for Thailand on Friday to attend the 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit and related meetings and will return on Nov. 4.
READ: Bangkok next stop for Duterte
Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea has been designated officer-in-charge while the President is abroad.
The ASEAN leaders are expected to discuss progress in the region’s community-building, cooperation with external partners, as well as regional and international issues, the Palace said Thursday.
There are about 40 anticipated outcome documents at the end of the 35th Asean Summit.
During the summit, the President will be accompanied by some Cabinet members and his common-law wife Cielito Avanceña.
The Asean Summit Plenary will begin on Nov. 2, Saturday.
On Nov. 3, the opening ceremonies of the Asean Summit will be held, followed by the Asean-China Summit, Asean-India Summit, and Asean-United Nations Summit.
The next day, Nov. 4, the Asean Plus Three Summit will be held among the 10 member states with China, Japan, and Korea.
The Asean-US Summit will also be held on that day, along with a special lunch on sustainable development.
The 14th East Asia Summit, Asean-Japan Summit and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Summit or RCEP are also scheduled.
The closing ceremony will be held in the evening, followed by a press conference.
Malacañang previously said that President Duterte will visit his parents’ tomb in Davao City before his departure for Bangkok.
On Thursday, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario said the 2016 Arbitral Ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration that invalidated China’s excessive claims in the resource-rich South China Sea, should be made an integral part of the Code of Conduct being formulated by ASEAN and China.
Del Rosario, who initiated the arbitration proceedings in 2013, also called for vigilance against any effort by China to use the proposed COC in the South China Sea to undermine the country’s victory at the Permanent Court of Arbitration against Beijing.
“Our region cannot promote the rule of law while ignoring the law as it stands,” Del Rosario said, in a forum held on Monday in Makati City.
Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio shared the view of Del Rosario, saying the Code of Conduct should not legitimize China’s building of artificial structures in the disputed waters.
“The Code should not be a vehicle to allow China to recover what it had already lost under the arbitral ruling in the South China Sea arbitration at The Hague,” he said.
According to Del Rosario, negotiating parties should ensure that the code would not legitimize Chinese claims or actions in the waters, where China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have overlapping claims.
“The Association of Southeast Asian Nations should stress that the South China Sea is nobody’s backyard or exclusive preserve. Failure to do so would severely narrow ASEAN’s options and make it over-dependent on a single player,” he said.
