MANILA, Philippines — Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla will replace President Joko Widodo at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Laura del Rosario said on Sunday.
Del Rosario, also the country’s representative to the APEC senior officials' meeting, said the Philippines welcomes Kalla’s presence at the APEC gathering as he is known as one of the ablest politicians in Indonesia.
Kalla will represent Widodo, who earlier confirmed he is skipping the Manila meetings to attend to domestic concerns in Jakarta.
Indonesia will also send Indonesian Trade Minister Lembong to the meetings.
Another APEC leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin, will skip the Manila meetings and will be substituted by Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev .
Both Putin and Widodo will still attend the G20 meeting in Turkey.
Del Rosario, however, said the absence of Widodo and Putin suggests that the APEC meetings is the lesser priority amid the the G-20 Summit and the ASEAN Summit in Malaysia.
"You take it as a leader’s priority that if there’s something happening in the domestic front, they do want to pay attention to that especially since this week is a very long week for them," Del Rosario said during the press briefing on Sunday.
"There's a G-20 Meeting, there's the APEC meeting, there's the ASEAN Summit meeting. How many days [are those]? That's seven or eight days. And I know that there are some leaders who do not want to stay longer than five days away, you know, from their countries especially since things are very fluid,” she added.
No other leader, meanwhile, has backed out of the APEC meetings in Manila following the "terror" attacks in Paris that left at least 120 people dead.