Arroyo to meet with Obama, McCain in Washington
By Maila Ager
INQUIRER.net
First Posted 20:56:00 06/21/2008
Filed Under: Foreign affairs & international relations, Diplomacy
SAN FRANCISCO, California -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will meet with both White House hopefuls Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain during her 10-day working visit in the US, a Philippine official said.
Ambassador Marciano Paynor Jr., consul general here, said Arroyo’s separate meetings with Senators McCain and Obama will focus on enhancing the bilateral relations of the Philippines and the United States and ensure that both countries will continue to work together on issues such as terrorism, energy, conservation, oil and food security.
“It doesn’t matter who the president will be,” Paynor said at a press briefing here Friday night (Saturday in Manila).
Arroyo will meet with Obama on Wednesday and with McCain next Saturday. Both meetings will be held in Washington.
“This is just a getting-to-know-you type of thing. Two, this is also one way of at least introducing the President to a future president of the US,” he said.
Among the highlights of Arroyo’s trip in the US is her meeting with US President George W. Bush at the Oval Office, but Paynor said the meeting, the third since Arroyo took office in 2001, was a not farewell call to Bush, whose term ends in January 2009.
The consul general refused to say who between the two leaders initiated the meeting. “A visit like this is always mutual. It doesn’t matter who made the request,” Paynor said.
“But it was the view that this is at this point will be good,” he said.
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