Cayetano offers prayers for Trump after assassination attempt

Philippines’ Senator Alan Peter Cayetano on Sunday offered prayers for former President Donald Trump who was injured in an apparent assassination attempt while speaking at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

“We continue to pray for former President Trump, especially since we have a special relationship with the United States. There’s no place for violence in politics, and this is one of the reasons ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is in the 10 commandments,” Cayetano said in a post on his Facebook account.

One person in the crowd was reported killed in the attack while several others were wounded. Trump himself was reportedly hit in the upper part of his right ear but is otherwise all right.

The senator remembered Trump as being “a real person” when he met the then-US President in the latter’s visit to the Philippines in 2017. “I had the pleasure and privilege to meet then-President Donald Trump when I was Secretary of Foreign Affairs. It was a blessing to get to know him as a person. As Filipinos say, totoong tao siya — he’s a real person. He engages with and listens to people without thinking of their rank or position,” Cayetano said.

He said while some world leaders and celebrities were “snobbish or impersonal behind closed doors,” Trump was “even kinder and more engaging when there were no cameras.”

“I and some of my colleagues in the DFA as well as some PSG personnel experienced this first-hand. Dinaan-daanan lang kami ng isa o dalawang leaders, others had a pleasant smile, nod, and warm handshake. But President Trump stopped and asked how we were, shook our hands, and actually waited for us to respond. He even asked a second question before moving on,” he said.

Cayetano said the apparent assassination attempt was traumatic for those in the ASEAN because of the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as he was giving a campaign speech in July 2022.

“We remember the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — how engaging, kind, and diplomatic he was but in a split second he left this world. That was my reflection when I saw the video of the attempt on Mr. Trump — that life on earth can be gone in the snap of a finger. We should always be ready to go any time,” Cayetano said. Thanking God that Trump was all right after the assassination attempt, Cayetano expressed “condolences to the victims who were killed and hurt in the incident.”###