PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Highness, I welcome you to the Philippines and this is a positive development in the countries between the Kingdom of Tonga and the Philippines. We welcome you and we accept you as the Ambassador of Tonga.

Thank you for coming over here. I hope you’ll have a very nice stay during your deployment in the Philippines.

Kingdom of Tonga Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Princess Angelika Latufuipeka Tuku’aho: Your Excellency, it is an honor for me to present my letter of credence by which His Majesty King Tupou VI accrediting me as Non-Resident Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Kingdom of Tonga to the Republic of the Philippines.

Please allow me to convey to you, Your Excellency, the cordial greetings of His Majesty King Tupou VI and extend through, Your Excellency, the friendly sentiments and good wishes of His Majesty and the people of Tonga to Your Excellency and the people of the Philippines. Thank you.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: We accept. Can we have a remembrance or photograph or something, if you can?

*****

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Excellency, we welcome you to the Philippines. We thank you for continuing the relations between our two countries. And we accept with pride your nomination as Ambassador of [Zambia].

Republic of Zambia Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Walubita Imakando: I thank you for your kind words, Your Excellency. It’s my singular honor to present to you, Your Excellency, the letters of credence accrediting me as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Zambia to the Philippines.

I also wish at the outset to convey fraternal greetings from the President of the Republic of Zambia, His Excellency Mr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu to Your Excellency and the people of the Philippines.

It is my hope, Your Excellency, that my tour of duty in the Philippines will be a very fruitful and productive one and that our relations during my tour will grow from strength to strength.

In that connection, Your Excellency, I wish to pledge myself to work tirelessly with the government of the Philippines to ensure that we can develop meaningful economic ties between our two countries for the benefit of our people. With my — with these few remarks, Your Excellency, please allow me to wish you a continued personal good health. And through your guidance we are confident that the Philippines will continue to prosper. I thank you, Your Excellency.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Excellency, we are ready to accept your lettres de créance and we are happy that you are deployed in the country. Zambia and the Philippines share the same history. And I’d like to thank you for hosting the so many Filipinos working in your country. Thank you very much in behalf of our Filipino workers.

I am now ready to accept your lettres de créance.

 *****

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Excellency, the Republic of the Philippines wishes you the best of everything. We are happy that you are designated Ambassador of Botswana and there are so many things that we can improve on bilateral ties and whatever mutual help that we can exchange with one another.

But most importantly there’s a growing trade, although small one. But we can, in due time, with a lot of cooperation within our two countries, I think that the future holds a better tomorrow for both of our countries.

Welcome and we accept you as the Ambassador Plenipotentiary Extraordinary of your country.

Republic of Botswana Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Nkoloi Nkoloi: Your Excellency, I have the honor to present to you, letters by which His Excellency Dr. Mokgweetsi Eric Keabetswe Masisi appoints me Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Botswana to the Republic of the Philippines.

I also convey to you fraternal greetings from President Masisi as well as from the government and the people of Botswana. I do so that in my tenure should be a prosperous one looking at promoting the good fraternal relations between the people of the Philippines and the people of Botswana.

In that score, I wish Your Excellency good health and prosperity. Thank you, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: We accept with honor your lettres de créance or letters of credence.

Republic of Botswana Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Nkoloi Nkoloi: Thank you.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: And thank you for finding time to visit me. Can we have a picture for our…?

*****

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: Your Excellency, Mr. President, it’s deep respect and it’s deep honor in this great Malacañan Palace let me to present the letter of credentials on the occasion of assignment of mine as Ambassador of the Republic of Uzbekistan to the Republic of the Philippines and to convey the best wishes of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan His Excellency Mr. Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: We extend the same wishes to your country and to your President and we’re happy that you are here this afternoon to present your lettres de créance.

There’s a growing number of agreements between our countries. I hope that we can further expand on it and we hope that these negotiations going on we’ll succeed. And we do not think for a doubt — we do not doubt for a moment that we are dealing with a great country, Uzbekistan.

I am happy that you are here to present your country and I hope that there are many Filipinos there also. Thank you very much and we hope to expand these bilateral meetings with you and your country.

Thank you very much.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: Your Excellency, Mr. President, I will put my all efforts and my force to expand our relationship between our countries and I would like to highlight that there a lot of various areas where we can deal with each other.

So as you mentioned, we are looking forward to have such kind of discussion with Philippines Republic.

Let me present the credentials.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Your Excellency, we are about to embark on a new beginning with your country.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE:  It’s a relatively new country but you have a very dynamic government.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: And we are happy to be dealing with you.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: We already discussed many things with your officials, the senior officials.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Yes.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: And we have a lot of unrealized potential, both countries. Philippines Republic is boosting country and also Uzbekistan, located in the Central Asia and also boosting country. So we can a lot of — a lot of chance and opportunity to work with each other.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: So I was told.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: The President of Uzbekistan just ordered to me to convey his best wishes to you and to the people of Philippines. Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Same. Please extend to the — your honorable President too, our warm greetings.

Republic of Uzbekistan Ambassador-Designate to the Philippines H.E. Bakhtiyor Saidov: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE: Can we have a photo?

— END —

Source: PCOO-PND (Presidential News Desk)