Message delivered

While here for a 24-hour visit in Manila last Friday, US State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton made engaging dialogues and discussions not only with President Arroyo and other top officials of the Philippine government but with the Filipinos in general, thanks to the town hall meeting Mrs. Clinton had with students from various colleges and universities across the country telecast live nationwide by the ABS-CBN.

The town hall meeting was held at the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila while students from the Silliman University in Dumaguete and Ateneo de Zamboanga were hooked up via remote coverage. I myself watched the whole proceedings at home on TV.

A leaked story from the Department of Foreign Affairs announced Mrs. Clinton’s short notice visit to the Philippines. She decided to include the Philippines in her itinerary on her way to attend the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit held over the weekend in Singapore.

Actually this is her third time to visit the Philippines. She first came here in 1996 when she accompanied her husband, former US President Bill Clinton during the APEC Leaders’ Summit held in Manila and in Subic Bay. One of the anecdotes in that APEC summit was that the Clintons never stayed in one of the 21 villas in Subic specifically constructed for each of the heads of economies. Built at a cost of several millions of pesos by the Philippine government for that purpose, the former US President reportedly merely used its comfort room to take a leak.

Anyway, Mrs. Clinton has come a long way from that time on. After her husband’s two terms at the White House, she pursued her own political career. A few years later, she was elected as Senator of New York. She became the first woman Senator to have run for the US presidency. She, however, lost the presidential nomination to her fellow Democrat, Barack Obama who is now the US President. Mrs. Clinton works for the Obama administration as his chief diplomat.

During the town hall meeting, Hillary displayed an effective combination of a politician and a diplomat that she has become. She was forthcoming in her replies to the question-and-answer forum and even obliged to reply on the silly ones propounded in the course of the forum. While we were not privy to the closed-door meeting that she had with President Arroyo at Malacañang Palace, we could just imagine the same kind of free wheeling and no holds-barred talks they had together.

As the two women are both intelligent and straight-talking leaders, it would be safe to assume there were discussions in broad terms about the country’s holding of its first automated elections in May 2010 and the peaceful transition of power afterwards.

In fact, the US Secretary of State mentioned at least three times at the town hall meeting about how definite is the fact that President Arroyo is stepping down as Commander-in-Chief at the end of her term on June 30 next year.

The first time Mrs. Clinton mentioned this was in relation to the questions on the Philippine government’s peace process in Mindanao with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Before arriving in Manila, she disclosed she got briefings about “fresh approach” in the ongoing efforts to bring to a final agreement the GRP-MILF peace talks. The negotiations were stalled last year by the controversial MOA-AD, or the scrapped agreement on ancestral domain.

“And there is an impetus because, of course, the President’s term will expire, and I think everyone believes that it would be important to get this done because you don’t want to start over again,” Mrs. Clinton pointed out. She went on to cite as example the experience of her husband who tried but failed to bring the Middle East peace talks to final agreement during his eight years in office at the White House.

The second mention of the President’s certainty of giving way to her duly elected successor came up after several questions later on the forum regarding the Mindanao peace talks. Citing unnamed analysts, ABS-CBN news anchor Ricky Carandang pointed to the perceived lack of either political will or popularity of the administration to forge a final peace pact with the MILF before the end of the Arroyo administration’s term before the May 2010 elections.

To this observation, Hillary replied she got the impression with her talks with President Arroyo that the latter “is very committed” to achieve her goal to ink a final peace deal with the MILF. Mrs. Clinton noted that both President Arroyo and her husband are “very enthusiastic” in pursuing their goals in life and in leadership. She even reminded the audience that former US President Bill Clinton was a classmate of President Arroyo while both were freshmen studying in Georgetown University in Washington.

She described President Arroyo as someone who could not care less or care more over popularity or unpopularity on “tough” decisions that must be made if that is the right thing to do. “And in fact, what I’ve often found is that it is easier to make these difficult decisions when you’re on the way out of office,” Mrs. Clinton stressed.

Wittingly or unwittingly, Hillary delivered this subliminal message amid loose talks of a supposed scenario of President Arroyo extending her stay in office, or seek a congressional post.

But another ABS-CBN news anchor, Pinky Webb apparently has not picked up the subtle message. Clueless, a wide-eyed Webb asked the question if President Arroyo told Mrs. Clinton during their one-on-one talks about stepping down in 2010, or if she’s planning to run for Congress?

“Well, we didn’t get into that. We talked about climate change, we talked about Burma, we talked about all of the regional and global issues, blah, blah, blah” Mrs. Clinton riposted. And went on with the usual diplomatese about the US being supportive to her allies like the Philippines to help preserve democracy in this part of the world. “And the President (Arroyo) was very, very focused on looking at what kind of progress we could make in the remaining months of her term as president,” Mrs. Clinton said.

In so many words, a very clear message was exchanged both ways. No uncertain terms, President Arroyo impressed upon to the glorified American messenger she is determined to leave behind a legacy of peace in the Philippines without need for anyone to tell her term in office is over.