MANILA, Philippines--Resuming formal peace negotiations with Moro rebels and firming up the country's defenses against the global financial turmoil top the agenda of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's first Cabinet meeting for the new year.

The meeting will be held Tuesday morning in Iligan City where suspected rogue elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) exploded bombs in two shopping centers just before the yearend.

But Cabinet Secretary Silvestre Bello said on Monday all security measures for the full Cabinet meeting at the Macaraeg-Macapagal Ancestral House in Timoga had been taken care of by appropriate agencies. The gathering is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

In the meeting, he said foreign undersecretary Rafael Seguis, the head of the new government peace panel, would discuss the government's new efforts to revive the peace talks with the MILF.

Malacañang earlier reconstituted the government's five-person panel, hoping that doing so would send a clear signal to the MILF of its readiness to talk peace again.

The MILF responded by outlining its conditions such as a halt to the ongoing police and military operations against its recalcitrant commanders.

The group also wanted a resolution to the botched signing of the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain, the issue used by rogue MILF commanders in pillaging civilian communities in Mindanao beginning last August.

Equally important in the Cabinet's agenda this morning will be the Comprehensive Resiliency Plan, the government's overall strategy to cushion the impact of the global economic crisis.

Economic managers earlier warned that the country would start feeling the effects of the crisis during the first quarter.

Bello said Ms Arroyo decided to rename the program previously titled Comprehensive "Sustainability" Plan, supposedly because the new term would be more appropriate.

"The new term is more demonstrative of the Filipino nation's character in facing the economic crisis," he told the Philippine Daily Inquirer by phone.

Malacañang had been insisting that the country was in relatively good shape in the face of the financial storm, partly because of key adjustments made during the Asia financial crisis in 1997.

After the Cabinet meeting, Ms Arroyo will visit some 700 flood victims housed at the Tubod Elemtary School at 6 p.m.