EDITORIAL - Painful snub

She doesn't have to admit it, but this much is very clear: When President Arroyo went to Washington last week to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in which President Obama was the guest speaker, she was hoping to meet, even briefly, the US leader.

Even if she was invited, it would have been very easy for Arroyo to politely decline if she didn't really feel like meeting with Obama. And there would have been no harm done. But she was dying to meet Obama.

A high profile meeting with Obama, no matter how brief, cannot but be splashed all over the media. And for a leader as unpopular as she is, such a meeting would have boosted her sagging stock at a time when she is again buffeted with charges of involvement in corruption.

Besides, she needs to recover from the PR nightmare that arose from Obama's refusal to take her congratulatory telephone calls when he won the US presidency. Even when Obama much later returned her calls, the stigma of the initial snub stuck and stung.

The trip to Washington was a big risk, yet she took it. It remains unclear why she went. Some say she was invited by US congressional leaders. Others say she worked the backdoors to wangle an invitation. Whatever. The fact is, what invitation was there, it was not Obama's.

So, either Arroyo is a real risk-taker, or she was plain desperate. Or maybe she was not mentally intact at the time. Because the moment she went to Washington, she allowed herself to move into a situation that was not under her control.

It was not clear what the protocol demanded of the situation. Was Obama obliged to acknowledge the presence of a head of state in the same room with him even if he did not invite that head of state? Or did protocol demand otherwise? That we do not know.

To many who are not steeped in protocol, how it was a mighty cruel thing to do to snub a fellow head of state, even if she happens to be someone you particularly loathe. Protocol aside, there are certain inalienable courtesies expected of civilized human beings.