BY JOCELYN MONTEMAYOR
PRESIDENT Arroyo is leaving tomorrow for a
week-long trip to the United States where she will attend the
United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.
Arroyo will address the UNGA on September
23 as it tackles the issues of global poverty and hunger and
the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals.
Her official visit to New York is from
September 22 to 25, said Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita.
Arroyo will return on September 27.
Ermita, rejecting calls of the United
Opposition to scrap the trip, said the New York visit is
important because it includes meetings not just with
secretaries general Ban Ki-Moon of the United Nations and
Edmeleddin Ihsanoglu of the Organization of Islamic Conference
but also other world leaders and businessmen who could be
potential investors.
Arroyo will leave at 9:30 p.m. Sunday via a
Philippine Airlines flight to New York. She will be
accompanied by a 71-man support staff composed mostly of
administrative and security officials. This does not include
Congress members and business leaders, Ermita said.
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said Arroyo
is proceeding with the trip to "remind everybody that the
Philippines remains a financially sound country where they can
readily do business."
It will be Arroyo’s 10th trip to the US since she assumed
power in 2001. Her ninth was last June, when she talked with
US President George W. Bush on human rights and food security
issues.
