President Rodrigo Duterte is expected to sit down with US President Donald Trump on Monday.
The US president is in Manila with leaders of 18 other nations for two days of summits, the final leg of a headline-grabbing Asian tour dominated by the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Allegations of Russian meddling in last year’s US presidential elections also hounded the second half of his 12-day trip, which took him from Japan to South Korea, China and Vietnam.
Duterte and his US counterpart have had brief encounters between them in the lead-up, including at another regional summit in Vietnam and a banquet dinner in Manila on Sunday night.
Unlike then-US president Barack Obama, whom Duterte has accused of intervening in Philippine affairs for repeatedly criticizing him over the drug war, Trump has so far appeared to be a fan of Duterte, telling him in a telephone call in April that he was doing a “great job.”
Trump appeared to support Duterte in his campaigns, including the drug war, a fulfillment of the President’s campaign promise of eradicating illegal drugs.
Many Filipinos back him, noting that he is taking necessary measures to fight crime.
Duterte said on Sunday that Trump had offered him further “words of encouragement” during their brief chat in Vietnam the previous day.
At the pre-summit banquet on Sunday, Duterte sang a Filipino love song in front of his audience, saying in a light-hearted fashion that he did so on the orders of the US president.
Duterte is hosting the world leaders because the Philippines holds the rotating chair of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc.
The events on Monday and Tuesday in Manila are two separate ASEAN-hosted summits, which also include China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, India, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Competing territorial claims in the South China Sea and fears that the Islamic State group is gaining a foothold in Southeast Asia are expected to be on the formal agendas of the talks. (Agence France Presse)
