MANILA, Philippines – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and United States President Barack Obama are expected to have a one-on-one meeting in Washington before the end of the year, US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney said on Thursday.

Kenney, in an interview over dzME Teleradyo’s program Dos for Dos, said the meeting with the Philippine president usually would happen in the first year of the term of the US president.

She denied that Obama was avoiding meeting Ms Arroyo as insinuated by critics here because of her low popularity rating among Filipinos.

Kenney said she had been getting this same question from people in the Philippines over and over again.

“That’s the question I always get a lot. She was the first Southeast Asian leader President Obama spoke to after his election. She was the first one he spoke to after his inaugural,” Kenney said.

“And I have to say that I would expect that before the end of the year, the two of them would have a meeting. You know, it always happens in the first year of the US president. They always meet with the Philippine president. I don’t have the date and time but I expect that to happen before the end of the year,” she added.

Kenney said the expected meeting of these two leaders should put a “smile” on the faces of both Americans and Filipinos because regardless of popularity issue, both peoples wanted their presidents to be talking.

Kenney also said the US was not disturbed by the Ms Arroyo’s declining popularity rating.

She said that US-Philippine relations were anchored on many decades of friendship as shown by the presence of close to four million Filipinos in the US.

“So our friendship goes way beyond just governments. Our relationship with governments is not based on how popular someone is. You know we, too, are a democracy and we deal, our president and members of Cabinet deal, with our counterparts regardless [of popularity]. That’s the way our governments do business. Popularity is not the issue,” she stressed.