President Benigno Aquino III. INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
CHICAGO–President Benigno Aquino III kicked off his whirlwind visit here Wednesday afternoon (early Thursday morning in Manila) by receiving Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at the JW Marriott.
Emanuel presented Aquino with a city council resolution before they sat down for a chat in a room at the business hotel in downtown Chicago.
It was Emanuel’s first day at work after he was reelected for a second term in April. Emanuel is a former White House chief of staff to fellow Chicagoan President Barack Obama before he was elected mayor in 2011.
After the meeting, Aquino motored to the nearby TransUnion headquarters for a roundtable discussion with executives of the US Chamber of Commerce and US Asean Business Council.
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Aquino would cap his visit with a meeting with 550 Filipinos of the 140,000-strong Filipino community in Illinois at the JW Marriott’s grand ballroom in the evening.
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