PRESIDENT Arroyo will meet US President Barack Obama on July 30. Malacañang said that on the agenda are bilateral cooperation, counterterrorism, and climate change.

Arroyo will be the first Southeast Asian leader to visit the US under the Obama administration.

It will also be Arroyo’s first face-to-face meeting with Obama, an opportunity long sought by Arroyo. The two had initially talked over the phone after Obama was elected in November 2007.

Arroyo was in the US last February to attend the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, which Obama attended, but the two failed to meet personally. Malacañang officials explained that the Prayer Breakfast was not the appropriate place for the two leaders to meet.

Arroyo instead met with congressional leaders and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton before returning to Manila.

The While House announcement on the meeting came on the heels of a brief visit yesterday to Malacañang of CIA director Leon Panetta, who conferred with Arroyo in a meeting described by Malacañang as "mainly a social call" even though the CIA official was said to have taken up the issue of international terrorism.

Panetta, on a routine visit on the Asia Pacific region, stayed in Manila around 12 hours.

Last month US Defense Secretary Robert Gates also visited Manila, during which he committed continued US support for the Philippines and its campaign against domestic terrorism.

Malacañang has yet to thresh out the details of the White House visit which will last for four days.

But in Washington, Fil-Am groups said Arroyo will likely use the visit to thank Obama for the US economic stimulus law enacted last February, which included lump sum funds for Filipino World War 2 veterans.

Bert Alfaro, editor of the community paper Manila Mail, said that even though Arroyo is now a "lameduck" president, she can still accomplish something before her term ends in May 2010 such as "the continuation of a strong Philippine-US alliance."

Alfaro also described the forthcoming Arroyo visit as an ego-boosting gesture from Obama.

"Obama can expect her to continue with the war on terror, keep US troops there and help the US, and reach out to non-aligned and Asean countries which has made her their spokesperson at the NAM gathering," added Alfaro.

During Panetta’s one-hour call on Arroyo, the CIA chief, accompanied by US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, also met Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, national security adviser Norberto Gonzales, and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo.

Panetta said that Filipinos are very close to his heart because they were in his constituency when he served as representative of the 16th district of California from 1977 to 1993.

Panetta, whose parents were Italian immigrants to the US, served in the US military as an army intelligence officer. He was a practicing lawyer before working as assistant to then New York City Mayor John Lindsay and later as assistant to Senator Thomas Kuchel of California. He also worked as a special assistant to Secretary Robert Finch at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare during the Nixon administration.