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Myanmar state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) to attend the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit Saturday.
Suu Kyi arrived at the Naia Terminal 2 at 2:40 p.m. She was welcomed by Health Secretary Paulyn Ubial.
BACKSTORY: Burma sending democracy icon Suu Kyi to Asean meet
Myanmar’s de facto leader widely perceived as a democracy icon arrived in Manila to attend the Asean Summit plenary to be hosted by President Rodrigo Duterte.
The Philippines is chair of this year’s Asean summit.
Duterte met Suu Kyi in Myanmar last March for bilateral talks and for the signing of the memorandum of understanding on food security and agricultural cooperation.
Myanmar state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi arrives in the Philippines. MARC JAYSON CAYABYAB/INQUIRER.net
READ: Contrast in style as Duterte meets Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
Duterte also handed over a symbolic certificate for the Philippines’ $300,000 contribution to Myanmar’s humanitarian efforts to the Rakhine State.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi earned criticisms for denying there is the ethnic cleansing despite reports of military abuses against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in the Rakhine State.
Suu Kyi was intermittently placed under house arrest from 1989 to 1995 and 2000 to 2010 for being the voice of the opposition against the military government. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
She was conditionally released in 2010. In 2015, she led her party the National League for Democracy in reclaiming majority of parliament seats.
Suu Kyi was given the position of state counselor because of a constitutional prohibition against her from running for president. Her confidante Htin Kyaw was elected president by the parliament. IDL//rga
WATCH: Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi arrives for #ASEAN2017 Manila summit @inquirerdotnet pic.twitter.com/MXIoStzfQ0
— Marc Jayson Cayabyab (@MJcayabyabINQ) April 28, 2017