Panelo to ask Duterte about possible visit to US

Will President Rodrigo R. Duterte consider visiting the United States now that the Balangiga Bells have been returned to the country? (File Photo: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson/Facebook)

MANILA — Will President Rodrigo R. Duterte consider visiting the United States now that the Balangiga Bells have been returned to the country?

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said he will ask the President during his attendance at the turnover of the church bells to town officials in Eastern Samar on Saturday (December 15).

“I haven’t asked him that. I will ask him when we go to Samar to turn over the Balangiga Bells,” Panelo said in a Palace briefing.

Panelo stressed that although he could not read the President’s mind, he was aware that Duterte has voiced out his hesitance to visit the US due to the cold temperature.

“What I know is, he really doesn’t want to go to the US – apart from whatever reasons he has in mind – he cannot stand the temperature, the coldness. He doesn’t like it when it’s too cold,” Panelo said.

Asked if the President would consider visiting the US during summer, Panelo said he would await the President’s response.

Philippine Ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez earlier said the President’s visit to the US, now that the church bells have been returned, would be “appropriate” to recognize the US government’s “good gesture.”

Earlier, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. said the President would only visit the US once the Balangiga Bells are back in Philippine soil.

US President Donald Trump has invited Duterte to the White House after they spoke over the phone after the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Manila.

The return of the bells is a result of the successful high-level bilateral talks between Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana and US Department of Defense Secretary James Mattis.

Before their return to the Philippines, two of the three bells used to be enshrined at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming while the third bell was at Camp Red Cloud in South Korea.

Over a century ago, American soldiers took the bells from Balangiga town’s church as war trophy after villagers killed 54 American soldiers using bolos, in what was considered the biggest defeat of the foreign troop during the Philippine-American war.