No, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (PGMA) does not have any coronary disease necessitating a bypass surgery. But Barack Hussein Obama has found a way to avoid meeting with her when he was a presidential candidate, a President-elect and as President. Yes, three times the American President has played a hide-and-seek game with PGMA. Now, she gets a fourth bypass when President Obama’s new Secretary of State undertakes an official first overseas trip to China, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia. Once again, the top envoy of the United States skirts the Arroyo Administration. In fact by going to Indonesia, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton may be traveling across part of the Philippines’ air space but she sidesteps the leader of what is supposedly America’s most-trusted ally in Asia. This means that insofar as the United States is concerned, PGMA is on the way out. The Filipino lame duck of a leader is now history.

And the irony of it all, PGMA’s rah-rah boys and her Rasputins trumpeted that she supposedly met with Secretary of State Clinton during the National Prayer Breakfast (NPB) at the Washington Hilton on Feb. 5, 2009. As this writer reported two days before the event, President Obama would not give PGMA her time of day. He did not even acknowledge in his speech the Filipino leader’s presence at the NPB and much more consented to a cursory photo-op at the back of the stage, which President Obama could have done had he wished to be photographed with Mrs. Arroyo.

To read our reports on the diplomatic snub of President Arroyo at the NPB, please click on these links:

President Arroyo Invites Herself Again to Washington, DC, and Once More Will Embarrass Filipinos

President Obama Ignores President Gloria Arroyo at the National Prayer Breakfast

As this column has written before, PGMA must use the remaining days of her Administration to do some things positive, so as to achieve redemption of her presidency. She cannot force the extension of her tenure under the guise of Charter Change because even American policy-and-decision makers treat her as an overstaying and unwelcome guest. Here is that article again that repeated Max V. Soliven’s own unsolicited advice for “President Arroyo to save her from herself” –  President Arroyo Is in a State of Denial that She Is Not Only a Lame Duck But Also She Is History

W ithout the perceived support from the military-industrial complex of the United States, PGMA faces now the reality that all her congressional and provincial supporters will slowly dump her. Even rats jump off a sinking ship. Or worse, she is vulnerable to becoming the Filipino version of Ngo Dinh Diem or Salvador Allende. There are hotheads among the junior officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men of the Philippine military who want to do immediate reforms. And do away with the massive corruption in the Arroyo Dispensation and her alleged coddling of illegal-drug lords, gambling lords and war lords.

In the end, this column hopes that the prediction of Washington, DC-based writer Ado Paglinawan will not happen. Mr. Paglinawan says that PGMA wants badly to extend her term that chances are “she will leave the presidential palace only in a horizontal position.”

And PGMA and her kin know that there is now in place a world-wide anti-money laundering mechanism that comes up easily with the paper trail of treasures and fortunes looted from a national treasury. Corrupt leaders of any nation can no longer hide in secret bank accounts in Switzerland or in offshore banks any and all loots. And they cannot obtain any political asylum in the Free World – unless these crooks prefer to live under the protection of a tin-pot dictator in a far-flung corner of the Third World.

* Here excerpts from the Washington Post report about the coming trip of Secretary of State Clinton to four Asian nations:

China Is at the Heart of Clinton's First Trip

By Glenn Kessler

Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 15, 2009; Page A06

In her speech Friday (Feb. 13, 2009), Clinton noted that "as part of our dialogues, we will hold ourselves and others accountable, as we work to expand human rights and create a world that respects those rights . . . "

State Department officials played down the prospects of major announcements on the trip, but they said it is symbolically important that Clinton is the first secretary of state in nearly 50 years to intensely focus his or her maiden voyage on Asia.

In addition to Japan and China, Clinton will visit South Korea and Indonesia. She will bring along Todd Stern, the administration's special envoy for climate change negotiations, in an effort to begin discussions on joining forces on environmental issues . . .

(Snipped)

The Indonesia stop is intended to demonstrate the administration's interest in building ties in Southeast Asia, where China has made important trade and diplomatic inroads in the past five years as the United States was distracted by the war in Iraq. Clinton plans to announce that she will attend a Southeast Asian ministerial meeting this summer -- which her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, tended to skip -- and Clinton is expected to indicate a willingness for the United States to sign a treaty of "amity and cooperation," which the Bush administration refused to do. Other nations in the region have signed the treaty, which calls for peaceful relations with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

To read the news report of Glenn Kessler in its entirety, please click on this hyperlink China Is at the Heart of Clinton's First Trip  Or this URL:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/14/AR2009021401382.html?nav=hcmoduletmv