Duterte arrives in Bali for ASEAN meet

BALI – President Duterte took a private jet yesterday afternoon to this Indonesian resort island, bringing with him a lean team to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Leaders’ Gathering.

Unlike his previous foreign trips, the President decided not to charter a Philippine Airlines flight for the ASEAN leaders meeting that would take only two-and-a-half hours.

Meanwhile, Cabinet members who will be attending the Bali meeting today would take commercial flights on their own. 

The President will also immediately return to the country late tonight after the dinner hosted by Indonesian President Joko Widodo for ASEAN leaders. 

The leaders’ gathering is actually on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank (WB), attended by more than 1,800 delegates.

The main purpose of the Bali meeting of the ASEAN leaders is to take advantage of the presence of United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde and WB president Jim Yong Kim.  

The ASEAN leaders can then discuss and see how they can improve  synergy to achieve the sustainable development goals in the regional bloc.

Meanwhile, ASEAN Vision 2025 is a roadmap that articulates the regional bloc’s goals and aspirations to realize further consolidation, integration and stronger cohesiveness as an economic community.

Meanwhile, Philippine Ambassador to Indonesia Lee Hiong Wee bared that two more Filipinas are now detained in Indonesia for alleged involvement in illegal drugs, besides the case of Mary Jane Veloso who was earlier convicted and sentenced to death by an Indonesian court for smuggling heroin. 

Wee said two other Filipinas are in jail in different places in Indonesia – one in Semarang and another in Jakarta.

He said he does not have details of their cases apart from their places of detention.