Arroyo’s next stop: Brunei

BEIJING (via PLDT) — After China, Brunei.

President Arroyo, her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo and Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes are among the "personal" guests invited by Brunei Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah to attend the wedding of his son, Crown Prince Al-Muhtadee Billah.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said Mrs. Arroyo’s trip to Brunei for the Sept. 9 royal wedding will not be a state nor even an official visit.

"That’s a personal invitation," he said. "This is not even a state or official visit."

Next month the President is expected to go to Vietnam. In November, she will attend the leaders’ summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Chile, to be followed by the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Laos.

Romulo was a member of Mrs. Arroyo’s official delegation in her three-day state visit to China.

Before flying back to Manila at the end of the state visit, Romulo told The STAR that the President’s next foreign trip would be to Brunei.

A Malacañang source said Reyes received his invitation because of his friendship with the sultan of Brunei, which started when the interior secretary headed the Department of National Defense.

Asked why Reyes became a close friend of the sultan, the source quipped, "Because he did not ask for anything from (the sultan). Because others, when they go and see him, ask for something from him."

On Mrs. Arroyo’s first foreign trip since she received a fresh mandate in office, Romulo took strong exception to suggestions that the choice of China was intended to send a diplomatic message to the United States.

Relations with the US soured after Mrs. Arroyo ordered the early withdrawal of the country’s humanitarian contingent in Iraq in order to save the life of kidnapped truck driver Angelo de la Cruz.

Romulo said that as far back as 2001, Mrs. Arroyo had made known her plans for a foreign policy based on developing good relations with the three dominant powers in the Asia-Pacific region: China, Japan and the US.

"Those are the three foreign forces that we believe we have to work together both for national security and economic development," he said. "It has nothing to do with any special significance of recent events. (The policy) was there from the very beginning."

The trip to Beijing, which is also playing host to the third International Conference of Political Parties up to Sept. 5, also showcased a second "reality" of Mrs. Arroyo’s foreign policy, developing good relations with neighboring countries belonging to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Besides meeting with China’s top leaders, Mrs. Arroyo used her trip to conduct a "side meeting" with Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

"And of course, the second reality, there is ASEAN. That’s why she is meeting during this visit… with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra," Romulo said. — Marichu Villanueva