Malacañang said Thursday it does not matter who wins the United States presidential elections as the Philippines shares a long-standing good relationship with the world superpower.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque made the statement as US President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are neck-and-neck in the race to win the White House with Biden leading the count in the electoral and popular votes.
Roque said that it does not matter who wins between Trump and Biden as President Duterte can work with any president.
"Kahit sino po ang manalo, wala pong problema ang ating Presidente (It does not matter who win. It won't be a problem for our President)," he said.
"We can work with any president because we have had a long history of very close friendship with the United States," he added.
Duterte had episodes with US presidents. A few months after he assumed the presidency in 2016, Duterte cursed then President Barack Obama for criticizing the drug war. Duterte is known to be quite close to Trump.
As of noon Thursday, Biden is leading with 264 electoral votes, six short of the 270 needed to snatch the presidency from businessman Trump who is 50 electoral votes behind Biden with 214.
Biden is also leading the popular vote with 72,071,139 votes while Trump has 68,598,738.
According to Roque, the Palace is also awaiting the result of the nail-biter battle between the two American politicians.
"Wala pa po, naghihintay lang tayo ng opisyal na polls (We have no comment for now because we are just waiting for the official result of the polls)," he said.
Roque hoped that the Philippines will be able to hold peaceful elections in 2022 like the US.
"Ang obserbasyon ng Palasyo, sana po matutunan din nating magkaroon ng eleksyon na walang nasasaktan, walang namamatay (From what the Palace observed, we hope that we will learn how to have an election where no one dies or gets hurt)," he said.
"Sana po sa eleksyon natin ganoon din – na mapayapa at mahinahon ang lahat (We hope we will have the same in our polls – peaceful and calm voters)," he added.
Trump and his allies have been protesting the results thus far while Biden pushed for every vote to be counted.