Opening Statements of Philippine President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and President Joko Widodo of the Republic of Indonesia during their Bilateral Meeting
Aguinaldo State Dining Room, Malacañan Palace
28 April 2017

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Excellency President Joko Widodo; distinguished members of the delegation from Indonesia; my co-workers in government; good afternoon.

I am pleased to welcome you to Manila for this important meeting. The Philippines values its long-standing relationship with Indonesia.

Our formal ties date back to our Treaty of Friendship in 1951, but we are bound by centuries of interaction and exchange.

We have almost seven decades of fruitful and mutually beneficial cooperation.

In fact, this is among the oldest of the Philippines’ diplomatic relations and we are eager to achieve more. I am positive that our meeting today will mark yet a new chapter of positive engagement at the bilateral, sub-regional and regional levels.

It is my wish that this sustained engagement will further deepen the foundation of our relations in the decades to come.

On this note, may I now invite Your Excellency for his opening statement.

PRESIDENT WIDODO: I am pleased to meet Your Excellency President Duterte again.

And it is an honor for me to reciprocate your visit by visiting Manila. And congratulations on the Philippines’ Chairmanship of ASEAN this year, the year where ASEAN will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

Within the bilateral context, our two countries has a robust cooperation. The Philippines is our largest trading partner in ASEAN and I am convinced that our meeting today will add value to our efforts in strengthening our bilateral relations.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Thank you, Your Excellency, for your kind words. 

As Indonesia’s close friend and partner, the Philippines is committed to working with you to open new doors of cooperation. 

Allow me therefore to highlight the following: on the political cooperation, we need to sustain the momentum of our engagements by utilizing the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation or otherwise known as JC[BC]… 

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