BY: Argyll Geducos
TOKYO, Japan – After the formalities shown during their joint press statement, President Duterte and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shared light moments during the official dinner Monday night.
In his speech during the official dinner hosted by Abe, Duterte ditched his speech for one particular reason.
“I will skip two pages of my prepared speech and go to the last page because I am hungry,” Duterte said, sending his audience in a laughing frenzy.
“I am going to change my writer. He is a book author not a speechwriter,” he added.
Abe, for his part, said he was impressed with how the video of his visit to Duterte’s house in Davao City last year gained millions of views.
“The video clip featuring my stay in Davao City we put on the Prime Minister’s Facebook account page actually marked over 100 – 1.3 million access counts, the greatest ever,” Abe said.
“I had to confess that 90 percent of those who actually saw this web page were actually the all of the Filipino people across the globe, so only the 10 percent account for those of us in Japanese. So I would like to encourage Japanese to pay more attention to my Facebook account,” he added.
However, Abe believes that the 1.3 million access counts were the testament to the deep, warm, family-like, and brotherly friendship between Japan and the Philippines.
Both leaders reaffirmed their friendship that goes beyond official lines.
“It is a friendship that is held dearly and valued so much more than words can describe,” Duterte said.
“Excellency, I will strive to keep that friendship, amity and cooperation between us, our nations and our peoples going from strength to further strength,” the President told Abe.
Abe thanked Duterte for making a trip to Japan despite his busy schedule as this year’s Chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
