MANILA, Philippines—With the 29th Olympic Games as backdrop, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is scheduled to arrive in China on Thursday for bilateral talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao—her first visit since she canceled the Philippines’ National Broadband Network (NBN) deal with China’s ZTE Corp. following allegations of bribery and kickbacks.
Ms Arroyo’s meeting with Hu was arranged “upon the request of the Chinese side” and will hopefully open a market for Philippine products among China’s large population, Press Secretary Jesus Dureza told reporters Wednesday afternoon in Malacañang.
At the same time, Ms Arroyo is to serve as the main cheerleader for the Filipino athletes hoping to bag the elusive Olympic gold medal.
During her three-day visit, Ms Arroyo will also hold courtesy calls and bilateral meetings with some of the world leaders expected to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
“They feel the event is something that conveys the unity of the world around sports,” Dureza said.
Itinerary
Ms Arroyo is scheduled to leave for China at 7 a.m. Thursday.
Her first stop is at Chengdu in Sichuan province, where she will visit Dujiangyan, one of the areas most devastated by the May 12 earthquake that killed more than 70,000 people.
She is to have lunch with Sichuan officials and will receive business calls at her hotel before proceeding to Dujiangyan, where she will visit the memorial shrine for those who died in the earthquake, as well as the resettlement area for those rebuilding their lives.
Dinner with Filipino athletes
She will distribute Philippine-made items to the children in the resettlement camps.
Ms Arroyo last visited Chengdu on June 6, 2007, for the Philippine-China Business Forum.
She will fly to Beijing on Thursday afternoon and fete the Filipino athletes at a dinner at the Asia Hotel.
On Aug. 8, Ms Arroyo will attend the Olympics opening ceremony scheduled to start at 8:08 p.m. Filipino world boxing champion Manny Pacquiao is to carry the Philippine flag during the traditional march of the competing athletes.
On Saturday, she will visit the Olympic Village and then have lunch with the Filipino community in China.
She is to fly back to Manila in the evening.
NBN-ZTE deal
Ms Arroyo’s last visit to China was in October 2007, when she met with President Hu to explain her “difficult” decision to cancel the $329-million NBN-ZTE project.
Since then, the Supreme Court has dismissed petitions seeking to nullify the project, saying that with its cancellation, the case became moot and academic.
The project to digitally link government agencies was scuttled as a result of public criticism over its suspicious circumstances.
Testifying last year at a Senate inquiry into the NBN-ZTE deal, then Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Romulo Neri claimed that then Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos had offered him P200 million to approve the project.
Abalos denied this, but quit the Comelec post shortly thereafter.
At the same Senate inquiry, Ms Arroyo, her husband and certain other members of a so-called “Greedy Group” were implicated in the deal.
The “star witness” in the inquiry, Rodolfo “Jun” Lozada Jr., was forced to seek refuge with the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines for fear of his life and those of his wife and children.
