Take 2: Asean Leaders’ Summit in Cebu now on

Finally, the 12th Leaders’ Summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is pushing through in Cebu after its last-minute "abortion" last month. From all indications, the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit is now a go and no less than four of the leaders of the 10 member-states arrived last night and the rest are expected to fly in today to Cebu.

The leaders of Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Myanmar, and Malaysia have already checked in to their respective heavily guarded hotel suites. The leaders of the six other member-states, namely, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, including President Arroyo who will fly to Cebu today. And soon, the ASEAN family is adding a new member to its growing family with the application of East Timor being tackled in this Summit. Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor is scheduled to sign during the Summit a treaty in preparation for Dili’s membership to this regional bloc.

The self-fulfilling prophecy that the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit won’t push through on Dec. 10-14 last year came to reality. President Arroyo made the hardest decision to postpone it even as she ran the risk of international embarrassment. And until now, this postponement still haunts the Philippine government no end.

The President opted this course of action rather than she being caught in Cebu engaged in talks with fellow ASEAN leaders while a swathe of destruction was being expected from a terrible uninvited lady visitor named "Senyang" who came to the country as a super typhoon. Cynics and skeptics, both here and abroad, did not buy this official explanation for the postponement of the summit. Rightly so, because the postponement came after four super power countries, namely, Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom issued one after the other travel advisories to their respective nationals warning them against travel to the Philippines due to verified terror threats.

The terror threat alerts were really the most reasonable conclusion to the postponement. But our top national security officials appeared to be the last to know when the President announced two days before the Summit the postponement of the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit. So I don’t think the postponement had something to do with security.

This time, on the eve of the ASEAN Summit, troublemakers in southern Philippines are at it again. Three separate incidents of improvised explosive devices blew up one after the other. Two of the bombing incidents took place in Gen. Santos City and the third one in Kidapawan, North Cotabato. Our law enforcement authorities have traced the renewed terror campaign in these Mindanao provinces to renegade factions of Muslim rebels trying to gain maximum attention out of the protracted resumption of the government’s peace talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). But Philippine geography shows us these hot spots in Mindanao are very far, far away and definitely nowhere near the summit site in Cebu.

Based on public announcements by our top police and military officials, there are about more than 30,000 security personnel deployed all over Cebu to ensure a zero-terror incident. But there is no 100 percent guarantee security blanket can prevent a determined terrorist to penetrate it to carry out his or her mission.

Whatever was the reason for rescheduling the Summit, the President’s decision to postpone it last month fortunately saved us from real embarrassment, not just imagined, when the roofs of the newly constructed Cebu International Convention Center (CICC), one of the major venues for the Summit meetings, leaked all over the place.

The completion of the CICC in time for the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit was one of the major concerns of our late publisher and board chairman, Maximo V. Soliven even while he was in Tokyo, on a speaking engagement. As in his usual foreign trips, Mr. Soliven kept close tabs of the developments in the Philippines, one of the reasons why he was calling me up at The STAR for a briefing of the top news for the day. Before he succumbed to cardio-pulmonary arrest last Nov. 24 in Tokyo, he called me up almost every night just to check how the contractors of the CICC were meeting their timetable of completion. He even tipped me off about the surprise inspection visit to Cebu by Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Secretary Alberto Romulo to check on the finishing touches being done at the CICC. And in between coughs, (Mr.Soliven I learned later had another pneumonia attack), he told me the CICC would not still be ready for the Summit. His apprehensions were proven true.

These memories floated back to me when I joined the bereaved Soliven family and relatives as well as friends and close associates of our departed publisher whose ashes were finally laid to rest last Wednesday at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio. On the eve of his hero’s burial rites, his widow, UNESCO Ambassador Preciosa Soliven even presented the plans and programs of the UNESCO Philippines during the regular Tuesday Cabinet meeting of President Arroyo at Malacañang Palace.

In her briefing to the President and the Cabinet, Ambassador Soliven presented her vision for UNESCO to transform all government day-care centers to provide low-income families quality basic education for their preschool children. Mrs. Soliven suggested these state-run day-care centers to follow the successfully tested formula of the Operation Brotherhood (OB) Montessori school where preschool children are taught and trained to do certain tasks and responsibility in their early age which is considered the period of high absorptive learning. President Arroyo believes in the same concept, she told us so in the past. She, herself a teacher, knows this concept and has applied the same to her first three grandchildren, Mika and Monique, daughters of her eldest son Pampanga Rep. Mikey Arroyo, and Eve, daughter of her youngest son Dato.

In her remarks at the end of the mass and burial rites for her late husband, Ambassador Soliven echoed anew Mr. Soliven’s call for Filipinos to unite and rally behind the President during these times when our nation calls for strong and determined leadership. Many have agreed with Soliven’s opinions on what would be done for the greater good of our country. But there were also those who opposed his strong views, including his previously doubted stand that the CICC won’t be ready in time for the ASEAN summit. The DFA Secretary declared yesterday "the show must go on" after the bomb attacks in Mindanao. Thus, the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit now gets its take-two.

* * *

Write to [email protected]