PR1 Skips US Airspace For Lima

14 November 2016

Duterte Keeps Word To Stay Away From America

True to his words that he will not go to the United States or fly over it, President Rodrigo R. Duterte will skip flying US airspace and that of their territories as he embarks on the longest travel of his life to the South American nation of Peru.

PR1 will leave noon on Thursday and will fly instead to Auckland in New Zealand for technical stop, arriving there at 2:30 in the morning where the Boeing 777-300ER plane will refuel and will leave two hours later for Lima, Peru arriving in the Peruvian Capital at 11:30 p.m.

Philippine Airlines could have taken him to Lima via the fastest route through Honolulu in Hawaii for technical stop but the President declined the route and instead insisted on taking different route away from US airspace as far as possible.

The longer route has something to do with immigration transfers and rudeness of some immigration staff, which Duterte suffered first hand despite holding diplomatic passport.

Duterte, then a Congressman, was invited officially to Brazil. As he recounts his ordeal:

“I was going to Brazil with some of the Congressmen and when we came back - because our entry, port of entry was L.A going there was Miami. You know when I was cleared by Customs, I was going out at the LA LAX airport. ”

“Here comes this black guy in uniform also black, with the pistol also black and his shoes was black and I thought that he was somebody - no slur intended that is his original color. And he accosted me and said 'May I see your passport.' So I gave him, it was a diplomatic passport because we were travelling most of the Congressman in my entourage were travelling with passport diplomatic. And he said, “Where is your letter of authority to travel?” And so that was the first time that I say it was missing. And I said with probably because that letter was addressed to the port of entry in South America, which is Brazil and it was not clipped and so probably it was not re-inserted in the passport and it was lost this way.”

“This guy brought me to a room to interrogate me and I said I’m a Congressman of my place, so what do you want to know. I said, if you detain me any further and if there’s a plane available going back to the Philippines now, I’ll be happy to ride and go home. That was the last time I went to America.”

The Philippines and the United States also has had a bad start on their relationship since Duterte assumed office in July due to interference by President Barack Obama over his brutal crackdown on illegal drugs.

PR1 would be taking the same return route on Sunday at 7:00p.m. towards Auckland and Manila.

The 2016 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders summit will be held from November 18-19. Peru first hosted the summit in 2008.