Rody to have phone conversation with Trump

MANILA, Philippines - President Duterte is expected to have a phone conversation with US president-elect Donald Trump in the next days, Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. said yesterday.

“We will be expecting within the next few days na magkakaron sila ng (that they will have) telephone conversation,” Yasay said in an interview on GMA News to Go.

Yasay said Philippine-US relations will not only remain intact but will continue to grow regardless of who won the US presidential election.

The foreign affairs chief also made it clear the country’s concerns transcend personalities. 

“Our foreign policy in the past has not really been independent because we had been dependent in many ways militarily, economically on the US and it has prevented our growth,” Yasay said. “So America has to understand there is a lot to address in terms of this core problem that can be as tiny and difficult in forging relations. They should address this as we are trying to address this now.”

He earlier revealed that in a brief conversation with US President Barack Obama in Lima, Peru during the APEC summit last month, the US leader expressed hope of better US-Philippine relations as Trump and Duterte share the same temperament.

Obama in September canceled a scheduled meeting with Duterte – supposedly to take place on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Laos – after getting cussed at by Duterte for expressing concern over reports of rising human rights violations in the Philippines.

At the ASEAN summit, Duterte delivered a speech defending his administration’s human rights record and lashing out at the US for its own human rights abuses during its half-century rule.