PH not on Obama’s South East Asia itinerary

President Barack Obama. AP/Carolyn Kaster

MANILA, Philippines—Newly reelected US President Barack Obama will travel to Southeast Asia next week, but his tour to the region does not include a visit to the Philippines.

Obama’s Nov. 17-20 Southeast Asian tour will include stops in Thailand, Cambodia and Burma (Myanmar), the White House said on Thursday as it confirmed his first international trip since he won a second term in US presidential election on Tuesday.

Obama will be in Southeast Asia to attend meetings in Cambodia centered on the 21st annual summit of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), which is usually extended to take in leaders of partner countries.

President Aquino leaves Manila for Cambodia on Nov. 17, the eve of the summit, which will be held in Phnom Penh from Nov. 18 to 20.

As of press time Friday night, there was no word from Malacañang whether Mr. Aquino would meet with Obama during the Asean summit, as the Palace press officers, Edwin Lacierda and Abigail Valte, were in a closed meeting with the President.

Neither was there an explanation for Obama’s skipping the Philippines on his Southeast Asian tour.

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) officials briefed Mr. Aquino on the Asean summit on Thursday, but his schedule, including meetings with regional leaders, has yet to be released by Malacañang.

A visit to the Philippines, a treaty ally, would be seen as fortifying US support for the country in its territorial dispute with China in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

 ‘Stabilizing effect’

Obama’s skipping the Philippines is “lamentable and regrettable,” Cagayan de Oro Rep. Rufus Rodriguez said Friday, “especially at this time when we need his presence and support in the dispute in the West Philippine Sea.”

Rodriguez said Obama’s visit to Manila would be a signal to China that the United States wanted the dispute to be settled peacefully.

“It would have a stabilizing effect,” Rodriguez said. “So we wish that he would change his itinerary and include Manila, America’s longtime friend,” he said.

The White House said Obama on Thursday returned the calls of a long list of global leaders, including those of Israel and Egypt, who contacted him to congratulate him on his reelection.

He spoke to the leaders of Germany, France, Britain, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, India, Turkey, Brazil, Colombia and the secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato), the White House said.

“In each call, he thanked his counterpart for their friendship and partnership thus far and expressed his desire to continue close cooperation moving ahead,” the White House said.

There was no call to President Aquino, who did not call Obama to congratulate him on his reelection.

Instead Mr. Aquino wrote Obama through the DFA to congratulate him.

Lacierda, the presidential spokesperson, told reporters on Thursday that Mr. Aquino would not call Obama because the US leader was probably getting many phone calls.

“I think the letter is sufficient,” Lacierda said.

Bad for RH fight

Meanwhile, Catholic Church leaders in the Philippines see Obama’s electoral victory as strengthening the groups pressing for the passage of a reproductive health (RH) bill in Congress, which the Church is opposing.

Batangas Archbishop Ramon Arguelles said the reelection of Obama, who supports groups that promote abortion rights and contraceptives, did augur well for “prolife” forces in the Philippines.

“It means more pressure from the White House on the Philippines, more funds for the antilife Millennium Development Goals program, and more strength and determination for the pro-RH camps to push their agenda,” Arguelles said.

“But God and true humanity can never be beaten. We who are on the side of what is right will only face an uphill battle,” he said.

Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco said, however, that the decision of the American voters should be respected.

“It is clear that President Obama is the choice of the majority of the American people. We have to respect the choice of the people,” Ongtioco said.

The RH bill is under discussion in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

A watered down version of the bill has been introduced in the House to soften Church opposition, but Church leaders say they oppose any proposal that promotes contraception.

The Senate leadership opposes the bill. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has said the bill will have to take a back seat to the 2013 budget and the proposal for higher taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

Burma visit

Obama will be the first US leader to visit Burma, marking the strongest international endorsement so far of the fragile democratic  transition in the once-isolated Southeast Asian country after decades of military rule.

Obama is going ahead with the trip despite recent sectarian violence in western Burma, which has drawn concern from the United States and the European Union.

UN human rights investigators have criticized the quasi-civilian government’s handling of the strife between Buddhists and minority Muslims, and some Burmese exiles see Obama’s trip as premature before political reforms have been consolidated.

The visit to Burma, the first by a sitting US president, will give Obama a chance to meet President Thein Sein and  opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to encourage the “ongoing democratic transition,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said.

Suu Kyi spent years in detention under the military as the symbol of the prodemocracy movement and was elected to parliament in April.

Obama’s presence in Burma will  highlight what his administration sees as a first-term foreign policy achievement and a development that could help counter China’s influence in a strategically important region.

Washington takes some credit for a carrot-and-stick approach that pushed Burma’s generals toward democratic change and led to Thein Sein taking office as reformist president in 2011.

Obama will be in Burma on Nov. 19, according to a senior government source in Rangoon.

While marking a milestone in US efforts to promote reform in Burma, he also risks criticism for rewarding the new government too soon, especially after security forces failed to prevent bloody ethnic violence in the west of the country.

Some 89 people were killed in clashes between Buddhist Rakhines and minority Muslim Rohingyas, according to the latest official toll covering the last 10 days of October. Many thousands more have been displaced by the violence.

The US Campaign for Burma, an exile group, said Obama’s trip could “undermine the democracy activists and ethnic minorities,” but that if the president was intent on going, he should broaden his agenda to include meetings with the still-powerful military and an address to parliament.

A senior administration official said Obama, who will also speak to civil society groups, was “acutely aware” of concerns about human rights, ethnic violence and political prisoners in Burma and would deal with those issues during his visit.

Sanctions eased

The United States eased sanctions on Burma this year in recognition of the political and economic changes under way, and many US companies are looking at starting operations in the country, located between China and India, which has abundant resources and low-cost labor.

In November 2011, Hillary Clinton became the first US secretary of state to visit Burma in more than 50 years.

Obama has sought to consolidate ties and reinforce US  influence across Asia in what has been dubbed a policy “pivot” toward the region as wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down.

Burma grew close to China during decades of isolation, reinforced by Western sanctions over its poor human rights record, but it is now seeking to expand relations with the West.

Obama met Suu Kyi, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, on her visit to the United States in September. Thein Sein was also in the United States to attend the opening of the UN General Assembly in New York, but the two leaders did not meet.

US Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, who is active on Burma issues, said Obama’s trip could be “the most significant step” in support of democracy there.

But he said: “There is still much more to be done. Too many political prisoners remain locked up, ethnic violence must be stopped, and not all necessary political reforms have been put in place.” With reports from Philip C. Tubeza, Christian V. Esguerra, Reuters and AFP