SOLIDARITY WITH TYPHOON-BATtered Filipinos tops the agenda of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she travels to the Philippines next week.

“I’ll be going to the Philippines to show solidarity with our friends in the Philippines who have been battered by typhoons and have just suffered so much over the last weeks,” Clinton said in a speech in Washington on Friday.

Powerful storms swept Metro Manila and the rest of Luzon beginning late September, triggering heavy flooding and landslides that left about 1,100 dead, tens of thousands homeless and destroyed millions of dollars in infrastructure and agriculture.

United States assistance, particularly in rehabilitating the typhoon-devastated areas, is high on the agenda of the Clinton visit, according to Malacañang and Department of Foreign Affairs officials who confirmed Saturday that Clinton will be visiting for two days in between attending the various meetings of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) in Singapore.

During her Manila visit, scheduled from Nov. 12 to 13, America’s chief diplomat will “hold consultations with senior Filipino officials, highlighting the US-Philippines treaty alliance,” Clinton’s spokesperson Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington.

Clinton will be arriving on Nov. 12 from Singapore after attending the Apec ministerial meeting there ahead of the Apec Leaders’ Summit. She leaves on Nov. 13 and will return to Singapore to join US President Barack Obama who will make his inaugural appearance at the Apec summit from Nov. 14 to 15.

US help in peace process

Clinton’s discussions with President Macapagal-Arroyo and Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo are seen as a prelude to the talks that Ms Arroyo and Obama will be holding on the sidelines of the Apec summit this weekend.

American help in the Mindanao peace process will be on the agenda of the meetings with Clinton, DFA and Palace officials said.

“They’ve given us a wide array of assistance—general education, humanitarian assistance, relief and supplies. We’ll see what we can do more at peace-building,” Ambassador Rafael Seguis,who chairs the government panel negotiating peace with the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said in a phone interview.

2010 polls not in agenda

US concerns about the 2010 national elections and the smooth transition of leadership are, however, not on the agenda, according to a diplomatic source.

“These may be raised in the talks, but they can’t be formally placed in the agenda because these pertain to matters internal to a state,” said the source who asked not to be named.

A diplomatic source earlier said that Clinton would “most likely” reiterate the US position that the 2010 elections are clean and that there would be a smooth transition of leadership next year.

Without confirming that the elections would be part of the talking points, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said clean elections and a smooth transfer of power after her term ends in June 2010 were also the goals of the President.

“That’s what the President is working for. That’s why she’s pushing for automation of elections to ensure honest and orderly elections,” he said.

“We welcome the visit of Hillary Clinton in her new capacity as secretary of state. This visit shows the good relations between the US and the Philippines,” Remonde told dzRB radio.

“This visit by Secretary Clinton is a good opportunity for the Philippine and US governments to have substantial discussions on bilateral, regional and global issues of mutual interest—disaster management, the Mindanao peace process, climate change and nuclear non-proliferation,” Romulo said in a statement.

Nuclear concern

Nuclear non-proliferation is a key policy concern of Obama and was one of the key issues discussed by him and Ms Arroyo during the latter’s official visit to Washington last July.

The Philippines will be chairing the review conference of the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in New York next May.

Next week’s visit is Clinton’s second trip to the Philippines and her first as the US secretary of state. This will be her second visit to Southeast Asia and third to Asia since being appointed Obama’s secretary of state. On her inaugural foreign trip after her appointment, she visited Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China last February.

Clinton’s first trip to the Philippines was in 1996 as US First Lady. She was then accompanying her husband, the then US President Bill Clinton, for the Apec summit held at the Subic Freeport that year.

In a flurry of travel announcements this week, Clinton and her aides announced her tour of Europe and Asia this month, including visits to Singapore, Berlin and China, one that comes on top of a tour of Pakistan and the Middle East that only ended on Wednesday.

Visit to China

Clinton also announced she will join Obama during his visit to China from Nov. 15 to 18, her second trip as chief diplomat to the country the Obama administration recognizes as a key global player.

China was a key stop on Clinton’s first overseas tour as secretary of state, in what analysts said was a US bow to an increasingly powerful region in a bid to tackle the global economic crisis, climate change and nuclear weapons.

Kurt Tong, the State Department’s pointman on Apec, said this week that the various Apec meetings, including those attended by Clinton, will focus on economic recovery following the massive global recession. With Kristine Alave and AFP