President Rodrigo Duterte said that Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to protect him against any attempts to unseat him.
“The assurances of Xi Jinping were very encouraging…’We will not allow you to be taken out from your office, and we will not allow the Philippines to go to the dogs,'” Duterte said on Tuesday while he was aboard the BRP Davao Del Sur, docked at Casiguran Bay in Aurora, for the commemoration of the Philippine Rise.
“Probably because I am a freely elected leader anyway, it could be a very justified statement,” he added
Duterte and Xi met last April at the Boao Forum for Asia where they have affirmed strengthened ties between Philippines and China amid territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Furthermore, Duterte also recalled his conversation with Xi, where he told the latter, “We are claimants to that island and we have this arbitral award. Though I am not insisting on its solution now, I’d like you to know that I am going to China Sea to claim part of our territory and I will dig oil.”
But Xi, according to Duterte, responded that it is not the right time to be discussing these matters as the relationship between the two countries has just been restored.
“I think it’s a new era for us, a new day and if I may beg you not to bring this up forcefully because there will be a time that we will be discussing it,” Duterte quoted Xi.
DAILY NEWS ROUND UP FOR 05/ 16 /18