President Aquino skips meet with UN chief, gala dinner

BALI, Indonesia—Apparently disturbed by a looming crisis in Manila, President Aquino skipped Friday afternoon’s bilateral meeting with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and Friday night’s gala dinner hosted by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Asia-Pacific leaders, including US President Barack Obama, showed up in their Balinese attire for the gala dinner hosted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at around 8 p.m. at the Bali Nusa Dua Convention Center, and Mr. Aquino wasn’t one among them.

Phone cut off

“No,” Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang said when asked by phone if the President was attending the dinner. The call, however, was cut off.

“He had a pressing issue that he had to excuse himself on,” Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, who represented Mr. Aquino in the meeting with Ban Ki-moon, said in an earlier interview.

The 5:30 p.m. bilateral meeting, which was requested by the UN chief, took place at around the same time news broke that an arrest warrant had been issued against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Manila.

Del Rosario thanked the UN chief over the body’s various programs for different sectors in the Philippines, while Ban Ki-moon lauded the Philippines for its ratification of the Rome Statute, among others.