Senator Antonio Trillanes clarified on Friday that he only presented ‘factual information’ about the current situation in the Philippines in his meeting with United States Senator Marco Rubio, denying claims that he tried to stop US President Donald Trump from visiting the country.
Trillanes negated reports that he attempted to influence US lawmakers to convince Trump to cancel his scheduled visit to Manila in November.
“I would like to confirm the information that I met with senior US government officials to include Senator Marco Rubio. As mentioned in the tweet of Senator Rubio, we talked about enhancing RP-US relations, corruption, and the human rights situation in the country,” Trillanes said in a statement.
“To be clear, I did not try to stop the state visit of President Trump since these things are carefully planned and cannot be stopped on the mere say-so of a Philippine senator,” he said.
Earlier, The White House confirmed that Trump will arrive in Manila on November to attend the special gala celebration dinner for the 50th anniversary of the United States- Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit (ASEAN) summit.
“Unlike the officials of the Duterte administration, I presented only factual information, besides, you cannot fool the US government; they know what’s happening in our country,” Trillanes added.
It can also be recalled that Malacañang expressed hope that Trillanes would not spread “biased” information in his trip to the US.
“We do hope the correct information has been given and not biased information designed to adversely affect US-Philippine relations,” Presidential Spokerperson Ernesto Abella said.
In response, Trillanes assured the public of pushing for the interests of the country which he branded as not as the same of the interests of Duterte.