By Gloria Jane Baylon

MANILA, Aug. 10 (PNA) — Addressing the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York City on September 24 provides the center of President Benigno Aquino III’s first official foray into international diplomacy and overseas trip as Leader of the Philippines, reliable sources said.

Aquino’s visit at U.N. general headquarters symbolizes the able leadership of the Philippines as this year’s president of last spring’s Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NNPT), acknowledged as such by no less than U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, that led to a stronger campaign for U.N. States that are not yet signatories to accede to it.

Also, the 1,040-strong U.N. Disengagement Observe Force (UNDOF) peacekeeping operation in the Golan Heights in the Middle East has Filipino Major-General Natalio C. Ecarma as its Head of Mission and Force Commander. UNDOF is mandated by the U.N. Security Council to observe the ceasefire between Israel and Syria, until December 2010.

When the planned second US-ASEAN Leaders Meeting in Washington are scheduled around the UNGA visit, Aquino will proceed to join that meeting, particularly since he has a standing invitation from the host, President Barack Obama, the sources also said.

In fact, it is quite possible that while in Washington, an Oval visit to the White House would happen, “though, again, that date is not yet calendared,” according to the sources.

At the US-ASEAN Leaders gathering, President Aquino would be the first to deliver an address, the Philippines being the country-representative of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in dialogues with the United States, said the source who requested anonymity.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to Obama’s “high anticipation” of the US-ASEAN meeting “in autumn,” when she attended the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Hanoi last month.

There, she was quoted as saying that the U.S. “see(s) ASEAN and the ASEAN Regional Forum as important pieces of a strong, effective architecture for security and prosperity in Asia.”

By the time President Aquino leaves for the U.S. next month, documents of the Washington-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) granting a 434 million U.S. dollars Compact to the Philippines would have been ready for the signatures of Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and the MCC, an independent aid agency of the U.S. government that is now chaired by Clinton herself.

Both Philippine and U.S. embassy sources said the exact date of when the signing would be – to be possibly witnessed by President Aquino – is not tabled yet, but it will occur.

The young Aquino administration’s strong commitment to the MCC’s three guiding principles for granting Compact grants – ruling justly, investing in people, and promoting economic freedom — was credited for the eventual approval of the funding this early in his Presidency.

It was a December 2009 Board Meeting of the MCC which decided that the Philippines was eligible for the Compact.

The Philippines, under the category of LMIC (low middle-income countries), got the Compact along with peers Cape Verde, Indonesia, Jordan, Malawi, Moldova and Zambia.

In the long years of the administration of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the groundwork for meeting the overall stringent eligibility standards and criteria of MCC were laid, leading to the raising of the Philippines’ income levels to a LMIC.

Meanwhile, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said that time is being arranged for Aquino to drop by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Consular Building to have the latter’s biometrics taken for his presidential diplomatic passport.

During his campaign for the presidency and towards the early days of his fledgling government, Aquino had repeatedly remarked that he is not keen on foreign trips that are “maybe unnecessary” and smacks of profligacy.

But now, the President has agreed that, aside from the United Nations and ASEAN-related meetings, his personal attendance is practically de rigueur in summits as the forthcoming ASEM (ASEAN-Europe Meeting, to be held in Brussels in October) and the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation in Yokohama City in November), the source added. ?

 

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