See you tomorrow
So, President Duterte finally got to meet US President Donald Trump. Reports coming from Da Nang in Vietnam, where several world leaders were meeting for the 2017 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit, described the meeting as "brief, warm and cordial." But of course when two leaders meet in public at a large gathering, you do not expect the meeting to be "long, chilly and acrimonious."
Still the "brief, warm and cordial" characterization of the meeting, which many people had been anticipating, is a dead giveaway of what the meeting was truly like -and it is that it was not a real meeting in the truest sense of the word. Indeed, proof of the meeting was a mere selfie provided by special assistant to the president Bong Go.
Had there been a real meeting that took place, there would have been a deluge of official photographs making its way to the Philippines. But as it turned out, according to a newspaper caption accompanying the published selfie of Bong Go, who had his face prominently on the foreground with Duterte, Trump, and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull just mere figures in the background, the meeting occurred during a break in the "family photo" op required of all leaders attending.
In other words, the meeting was nothing of the sort anyone had expected. It was what it was, a meet-and-greet. In fact, according to those close enough to the encounter to quote what they heard, Trump was supposed to have told Duterte: "See you tomorrow." If I had not been absolutely sure Trump had never been to Cebu before, I could have sworn he got that phrase from a popular Cebu-based dimsum restaurant, whose waitresses say that to all customers as they leave.
But as "brief, warm and cordial" as the meeting was, and whatever "brief, warm and cordial" might have truly meant other than what the one who coined it tried to euphemize, it was a meeting nevertheless. Trump could have avoided Duterte altogether, which is what the Philippine leader's critics lighted seventeen candles for. Indeed, two US senators were supposed to have actually egged Trump to snub Duterte.
Had that happened, it would have been Trump and America who end up losing. Lest we forget, China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin were in the same APEC meeting. In fact, Duterte actually had a much earlier meeting with Putin. And there were no ifs or buts about that meeting because it was a real sit-down serious conversation amply covered by media and supported by photographs. It was not the waiters who said "see you tomorrow" but the principals themselves.
Duterte has been cozying up to Xi and Putin, and Xi and Putin had been cozying up to Duterte. Whether everything had been real or just done in polite pretense, we will all soon see as things develop further in the new global theater that Southeast Asia has become. True, the Philippines may be having some issues with China but Duterte should be given more credit for his handling of the matter than what he is actually getting.
The Philippines is in a no-win situation vis-a-vis China. Xi already told Duterte to his face he will go to war if Duterte so much as lifts a finger. So the wily Duterte has resorted to parlaying his hopeless situation into something from which he can benefit from, for as much and as long as he can. But Trump and America, with their problems with North Korea, China, and Russia, need Duterte and the Philippines more than they care to admit. So it is really "see you tomorrow," Mr. Trump.
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