(CHRISTIAN DALE)

TINITINGNAN na ang pagdalo ni Pangulong Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. sa United Nations General Assembly sa New York sa Setyembre kung saan magbibigay ito ng kanyang talumpati.

Sinabi ni Philippine Ambassador to Washington Jose Manuel Romualdez na posible rin ang side meeting ni Pangulong Marcos kay US President Joe Biden.

Iyon nga lamang, sinabi ni Romualdez na mas gusto niya ang hiwalay na inaugural bilateral summit sa pagitan ng dalawang lider ngayong taon sa Washington, D.C.

Bukod dito, posible rin magkaroon ng bilateral meetings si Pangulong Marcos sa iba pang lider ng UNGA, inilarawan ni Romualdez bilang “a very important occasion.”

“You can be sure that [with] the kind of publicity in the past weeks [since] he was inaugurated as [the] 17th president, a lot of people are very interested to hear him, to see him, meet him. So that’s why very early on, even before the elections, I told him that I hoped one of the first trips that he would have in the Western world would be [to] the United Nations,” ayon kay Romualdez.

May tsansa rin aniya ang Pangulo na makadalo sa UN assembly bilang Pangulo ng Pilipinas sa unang bahagi ng two-week meeting.

“I think that he sees that as a valuable reason for him to be at the United Nations, that he will speak at the UN. It’s a very important occasion and a lot of heads of state will be there for sure,” ayon kay Romualdez.

Samantala, wala pang tiyak na petsa kung kailan ang bilateral meeting ni Pangulong Marcos kay Biden sa White House subalit umaasa na matutuloy ito bago matapos ang taon o bago ang buwan ng Nobyembre.

Nagpaabot ng imbitasyon si Biden kay Pangulong Marcos na bisitahin ng huli ang Washington sa isang “mutually agreed date.”

“On the bilateral, we have not yet gone there because personally I would like to see President Marcos go to Washington, D.C. for a meeting with President Biden and hopefully we can do that sometime before the end of year, before November. But we have to look at the right timing for it, the invitation is open-ended,” ayon kay Romualdez.

Sa kabilang dako, nakatakda namang dumalo si Vice President Sara Duterte sa education summit sa New York sa Setyembre, sa UNGA.