GMA to meet Fresno Pinoy community in US

SAN FRANCISCO, California (via PLDT) — President Arroyo will visit Fresno and meet members of the Filipino community there, her first official activity of the 10-day working visit to the United States.

Mrs. Arroyo arrived here Saturday night, together with 10 Cabinet officials. The presidential party is scheduled to visit Fresno, the state’s center for agricultural production, which is a four-hour drive from San Francisco on Sunday morning.

Ambassador and Presidential Assistant for State and Foreign Visits Marciano Paynor said the theme of Mrs. Arroyo’s visit is “Lakbay Amerika sa Diwa ng Demokrasya at sa Maunlad na Ekonomiya (Journey to America in the Spirit of Democracy and a Progressive Economy).”

Paynor said Mrs. Arroyo was supposed to meet Republican presidential candidate John McCain in Fresno but moved the meeting to Washington next week because the latter could not make it on the time agreed and “he requested that the meeting be transferred to Washington.”

The Filipino community in Fresno is ready to meet Mrs. Arroyo and she would hear Mass with some 600 Filipino-Americans there and nearby counties such as Stockton, Bakersfield, Modesto and Merced.

The Mass would take place at the Fresno Convention Center.

Fresno, he said, is the “center of what is known as the central valley which is the rice and agricultural center of California.” The state is also known to be the main producer of rice for the United States and also for Japan, Paynor said.

“A significant portion of their produce is exported to Japan. And at a time we are experiencing the spiraling cost of basic commodities especially rice, what better place to tackle or at least to look at the food security issue than Fresno,” Paynor said.

Fresno is also an important place for the Filipinos as it is where the first Filipino community in continental United States was established way back in 1898.

“It was in Stockton then they moved to Fresno so you can imagine in a sense the importance of the place,” he said.

There are only about 10,000 Filipino families in Fresno or about 30,000 Filipino-Americans.

The President would also visit the Regional Hospital of Fresno where there are quite a number of Filipino doctors and nurses employed.

Mrs. Arroyo would also visit the University of California-San Francisco Medical Research and Training Center which is headed by a US-trained Filipino doctor, Dr. Dominic Dizon.

Paynor said the President may have a brief lunch with the Filipino community and would proceed to Washington DC where she has a packed schedule that included a meeting with US President George W. Bush that would tackle a wide-range of issues that affect bilateral relations between the two allies, including food security