MANILA, Philippines — The possible transfer of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to the Philippines and security in the disputed, gas-rich South China Sea region will most likely become the top talking points of the meeting between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and United States President Barack Obama when Ms Arroyo visits Washington at the end of the month.

According to a highly placed source, the discussions between the two leaders will build on the points covered during the visit here two weeks ago of US Central Intelligence Chief Leon Panetta.

The source was involved in the preparations for Panetta’s visit and asked for anonymity because of lack of authority to speak on the matter.

The CIA chief, who stayed for only a few hours, met with the President and top military and police officials on security and antiterrorist cooperation.

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, the chair of the Senate foreign relations committee who will be part of Ms Arroyo’s official delegation, said she was not aware if Guantanamo was part of the talking points but said the US side might raise it during the meeting.

“That’s one of my concerns, that when we talk about regional security and antiterrorism there is a distinct possibility that issue might be raised,” said Santiago who will be joining Ms Arroyo in her meetings with Obama.

“It is not a secret that the US is actively looking for countries willing to take the Gitmo prisoners,” she said.

If the US does make the proposal, Santiago said she would “approach the coming talks with an enlightened skepticism.”

“I don’t know what benefits would outweigh the risks that the presence of terrorists in our territory would have,” Santiago said.

She warned that accepting the prisoners from Guantanamo would be rejected by the Filipino people, “this will be explosive.”

This could become an election and impeachment issue, she said.

The possibility of the Philippines “hosting” some of the detainees at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, might be up for discussion when Ms Arroyo meets Obama who is committed to closing the facility, the source told the Inquirer.

Relocation of prisoners

“The US seems committed to shipping out the prisoners from Guantanamo to other countries in the world. Being a longtime ally of the US in the global war against terrorism, the Philippines would likely be on the list of countries where the Guantanamo prisoners would be relocated,” he said.

The Obama administration has been negotiating with European and other governments around the world to resettle the terrorist suspects that the US had captured and detained at Guantanamo Bay. Since Obama took office, the US has transferred one detainee to France and one to Britain.

Early this month, the New York Times reported that the US had won an agreement to transfer up to 17 Chinese Muslims from the prison camp to Palau, a sparsely populated archipelago 805 kilometers east of the Philippines.

In Malacañang, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde denied that the possible transfer to the Philippines of Guantanamo Bay prisoners was ever discussed with Panetta. He said he wasn’t even aware that the US was discussing the matter with its allies in the region.

Not on agenda ‘as of now’

He said the subject was “not in the agenda as of now” in the Washington meeting between Ms Arroyo and Obama.

Neither Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita nor National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales returned the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s calls.

Obama ordered the closure of the Guantanamo facility where it was revealed prisoners had been tortured shortly after his election. He had made the jail’s closure one of his campaign promises.

One of the inmates at the Cuban jail is Khalid Sheik Mohammed who once headed an al-Qaida cell operating in the Philippines that planned to assassinate US President Bill Clinton and Pope John Paul II during their visits here in the 1990s.

‘Operation Bojinka’

Together with his nephew Ramzi Yousef, Mohammed also hatched “Operation Bojinka,” or a plan to either simultaneously detonate international flights in the air, or crash them into targets. This is said to be the template for the 9-11 attacks in the US.

As of January 2009, there are at least 245 detainees still in the facility.

The source said energy security in the South China Sea area was likely to be a big concern and will figure in the discussions during Ms Arroyo’s visit.

“The stakes there are getting high,” the source said.

The source said the US and the Philippines are concerned about security in the South China Sea after a recent clash between Chinese vessels and a US surveillance ship, the Impeccable, last March. The US sent warships to the area after the clash.

US oil and gas firms have partnered with some Vietnamese companies to explore the region for resources.

Thorny issue

Also last March, China protested the Philippines’ approval of a baselines bill that referred to the Scarborough Shoal and the Kalayaan group of islands, part of the disputed minerals- and gas-rich Spratlys group, as a “regime of islands under the Republic of the Philippines.”

The Chinese Embassy in Manila called the claim “illegal and invalid.”

Beijing has long staked a claim on the entire Spratlys and the presence of Chinese outposts in the archipelago has become a thorny diplomatic issue with the Philippines as well as other claimants in the region, which include Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam and Taiwan. With reports from Juliet Labog-Javellana and TJ Burgonio