Noy to take part in Asean-US Leaders' meet in NY

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino will have his hands full on Sept. 24 as he is slated to address the United Nations General Assembly in the morning and meet later in the day with US President Barack Obama together with other heads of state of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Chief Executive will leave for the US tomorrow on a commercial flight.

Mr. Aquino is scheduled to meet with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and with leaders of Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

He will have bilateral meetings with Vietnamese President Nguyan Minh Triet, Malaysian Prime Minister Dato’ Sri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak and Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, among others.

In his meeting with Ban, Mr. Aquino is expected to discuss the Philippines’ achievements in its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), its support for the UN’s peacekeeping missions, as well as efforts to fulfill the objectives of the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The Philippines has the third biggest contingent among ASEAN members and the 23rd worldwide in UN’s peacekeeping operations.

Philippine military and police personnel are deployed in most of the 16 UN peacekeeping missions, such as in Golan Heights, Liberia and Haiti.

In the afternoon, Mr. Aquino will attend the 2nd ASEAN-United States Leaders’ Meeting in New York.

The ASEAN leaders are expected to issue a joint statement highlighting the important areas of ASEAN-US cooperation.

The Leaders’ Meeting is also expected to pave the way for the creation of an ASEAN-US Eminent Persons Group that will recommend ways to build and sustain a strategic partnership between the regional bloc and the US in the fields of politics, economy, and security, among others.

The Philippines is the Country Coordinator for ASEAN-US dialogue for 2009 to 2012.

Earlier this year, ASEAN foreign ministers met with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during the 43rd ASEAN Ministerial Meeting-Post Ministerial Conference in Vietnam. It was Clinton who extended President Obama’s invitation to the ASEAN leaders for a US meeting.

The Sept. 24 meeting will be the second between ASEAN and the US.

The 1st ASEAN-US Leaders’ Meeting was held in Singapore on Nov. 15, 2009.

Opportunity

President Aquino sees his US trip as a chance to bolster the global appeal of the country. His administration was put in the harsh glare of live global television last month after a bungled police rescue that left eight Hong Kong tourists and a hostage-taker dead in Rizal Park.

“This incident will not define this administration,” Mr. Aquino said as he received the findings of an official inquiry into the fiasco that called for sanctions against a dozen named people.

“We are not talking a hundred, two hundred jobs. We are not even talking a thousand. We are talking more than that,” he said referring to the jobs that an influx of foreign investments is expected to create.

Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa said Mr. Aquino was mindful of the need to avoid extravagances on his visit to the US.

The President will take a regular flight to San Francisco then use a chartered flight to New York, where he will avoid fancy hotels and stick to modest restaurants.

“We are conscious of the fact that we are in a debt hole. We can only begin to climb out of it if we strictly implement austerity measures and cut down on unnecessary spending,” Ochoa told reporters.

“The President wanted a very lean delegation. Just to give you a backgrounder, the original list is more or less lean already, 80 plus. But they decided to cut down because of the President’s intention of really wanting to be frugal in his travels abroad and the final number is around 57, if I’m not mistaken, including the President,” spokesman Edwin Lacierda said over radio dzRB.

The son of the late democracy icon Corazon Aquino had pledged a fresh start and a clean government, saying the corruption that eats up a fifth of the national budget alone is the main cause of widespread poverty.

However, the tone of his US visit would be different from that of his late mother, who was treated as a heroine for ending the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, when she addressed a joint session of the US Congress in 1987.

Research analyst Erwin Balita of SB Equities said the hostage fiasco has not so far impacted on the decision-making of investors in the Philippines, with share prices rising to record highs last week.

“They (new governments) are allowed a certain grace period to make the transformation, so investors are allowing that window to reform the system,” Balita said.

“He said he will clean up the bureaucracy, remove corruption. That is one good selling point if he convinces the US government and businessmen. More aid, trade and grants could come to the country because of that,” Balita added.

The economy grew at its fastest pace in over 20 years in the first half of the year, with a 7.9 percent expansion, while the jobless rate eased to 6.9 percent and inflation stayed low. With Aurea Calica