Saturday, December 23, 2006 Dates finally set: Jan. 10-15; holidays, all up to President
WITH all member-countries and dialogue partners confirming their attendance, the National Organizing Committee has finalized the dates for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) Summit next month in Cebu.
Foreign ministers will meet on Jan. 10 and 11, while the Southeast Asian Leaders’ and the East Asia Summits and other related meetings will take place from Jan. 12 to 15, said Ambassador Marciano Paynor Jr., National Organizing Committee secretary-general.
The dates are exactly a month after the original schedule, abandoned on account of typhoon Seniang.
Confirmed
India confirmed its attendance last Thursday, the last country to do so. It is one of the dialogue partners that Asean leaders will be meeting to discuss regional arrangements on trade, counter-terrorism and other matters.
As to the holidays, Paynor said it will be up to Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia and Mayors Tomas Osmeña of Cebu City and Thadeo Ouano of Mandaue City to make their recommendations, for President Arroyo to act on.
Paynor said there is no need for a new presidential proclamation for the holidays but only an amendment based on the recommendation of the local chief executives.
The ambassador added that there will be more than 40 meetings in Cebu, whose venues are still being finalized. He reiterated that more events will be held in the Cebu International Convention Center (CICC).
All the 16 heads of state—10 from the Asean countries and six from the dialogue partners—have officially confirmed they will attend next month’s summit. The dialogue partners are China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
In an ABS-CBN interview, Ambassador Victoriano Lecaros, 12th Asean Summit spokesman, said they want the delegates to see some of the activities of the Sinulog celebration, but they also do not want the meetings to overlap with the grand celebration on Jan. 21.
He revealed that they did not have difficulty in adjusting the schedules of the leaders, which was one of the concerns when this month’s events were postponed.
The summit was originally slated for Dec. 10 to 14 but the organizers announced a last-minute postponement because Seniang was forecast to hit Cebu on the day the leaders were expected to arrive.
Speculations
But there were speculations that a terrorist threat as well as the political instability because of opposition to Charter change maneuvers may be the real reasons for the postponement.
The US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Japan had warned their citizens shortly before the December summit that terrorists might be “in the final stages” of planning an attack in Cebu. Philippine authorities said no specific information had been received.
Before the postponement, however, several meetings were concluded, such as that of the Asean economic ministers and the Asean Business and Investment Summit. (MBG)
