The President, attired in orange formal business dress designed by half-Japanese half-Filipino Ito Curata, entered the NAM session halls shortly before

9:00 a.m.

She was the third female head-of-state who arrived at the PWTC. She came after Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

Upon her arrival, President Macapagal-Arroyo was met by the Malaysian Deputy Minister-In-Attendance and was escorted to the holding lounge of the Tun Razak Hall 4 at Level 4 of the PWTC.

At the entrance of the lounge, the President was welcomed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir bin Mohammad

Before the start of the opening program at 10 a.m., the President joined the third group of NAM leaders to be ushered inside the plenary session hall.

The President was seated at the front row. She will the fifth speaker during the plenary session and general debate this afternoon.

She is expected to speak at about 2:30 p.m. on the NAM's Agenda No. 8 focused on a review of the international political and economic situation and the role of the NAM in the 21st century.

The President arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, about 70 kilometers from here, shortly before midnight Sunday.

She came from Villamor Air Base in Pasay City and flew aboard a Hawker 800xP private aircraft that cruised for about three hours and 45 minutes to this Malaysian capital.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople said the three fellow members in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) would not hesitate to help the Philippines weather any oil crisis that might break out because of a possible US-led attack on Iraq.

"There is an agreement to that," he said.

Ople noted that the Asean Petroleum Supply Agreement (APSA) signed by the region’s energy ministers committed the supply of crude by oil-exporting Asean members to non-oil producing Asean neighbors.

Philippine-based oil firms have been sourcing some of their crude and petroleum requirements from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand.

Ople said Russia and Iran have also pledged to supply crude to the Philippines.

However, the volume of oil to be supplied had not yet been specified, he said.

He said additional oil would further increase the country’s oil inventory level which has already reached 77 days of supply.

This was how Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople described the support and help Malaysia has been giving the Philippines in the latter’s peace initiatives in its southern islands.

Ople, in an interview late Sunday at the Ritz Carlton Hotel here, said the Malaysian government has continued "to lend its good offices" to help resolve the issue on the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the three-decade-old Mindanao Problem.

Ople said Malaysia, historically, has been hosting the Philippines-MILF peace talks.

He also noted the initiatives of Malaysia and neighbor Indonesia in pushing for and supporting "our bid for an observer status in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC)."

The powerful 49-member OIC, composed of Islamic nations, has been taking up the problem in Southern Philippines since 1994, since the grouping’s meeting here.

"(The OIC had) emphasized respect on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of the Philippines" in resolutions on the Mindanao problem they approved year after year, Ople said.

He noted that the next Ministerial Conference of the OIC would be conducted in Tehran with Iran as host.

He also assured that the OIC would not misread recent developments in Mindanao.

"We do not allow any communications gap to develop" between the government and the OIC, he said.

Before he left to attend the Non-Aligned Movement Summit that opened here this morning, Ople said he met with all Manila-based OIC ambassadors and "gave them a detailed briefing on the latest developments concerning the MILF in Mindanao, including the battle in Pikit, Cotabato."

Ople also stressed that the government had "resisted attempts to list the MILF as a foreign terrorist organization "because we want to give way to the peace process in full."

He said the MILF peace panel based here, speaking through its head Al Haj Murad Ibrahim, "has expressed its willingness to participate in the peace talks under Malaysian auspices."

The matter, he noted, is being handled by Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita and Presidential Adviser on Special Concerns Norberto Gonzales.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo last week sent Gonzales here to initiate contact with the MILF after the latter refused to go back to the negotiating table following a military offensive on a major MILF camp in Liguasan Marsh, Pikit, Cotabato.

The military was after a notorious kidnap-for-ransom gang and other criminal elements said to have sought refuge at the Buliok complex in the marsh. Reports said the MILF harbored the criminal groups.

The ceasefire pact specifically provided that the MILF would not harbor criminal and lawless elements.

Ople said Gonzales will report to the President the progress of his back-channel talks with the MILF.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople asserted this, saying he was willing to "humble myself and go back to Europe and say ‘Please delist these gentlemen because they are no longer terrorists’."

Ople, in an interview in his room at the Ritz Carlton Hotel late Sunday, said he was willing to ask for a review of the sanctions imposed by the European Union on the Netherlands-based top CPP leader, Jose Ma. Sison, and the communist group.

Sison is also facing murder charges in Philippine courts for the cold-blooded killing of former Cagayan Congressman and Governor Rodolfo Aguinaldo.

"It is up to them," Ople said, referring to the CPP, the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the New People’s Army (NPA).

"If they want peace, they should come back to the peace table without so many pre-conditions," he stressed.

The CPP-NDF-NPA, whose leaders are holed out with Sison in the Netherlands, demanded to be freed of the terrorist tag before they talk peace with government.

Brushing aside this snag to the peace talks, Ople said the demand of the communist group "is unlikely to happen."

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo recently sent a team, composed mostly of the members of the Philippine peace panel, to Ultrecht in the Netherlands for exploratory talks aimed at resuming the peace negotiations. Keeping all options open in the search for ways to peacefully resolve the 30-year insurgency problem in the Philippines, the President cited the benefits of social, economic and political growth under an atmosphere of security.

The US would not even consider using the Philippines’ second largest island as a jump-off point in its campaign against global terrorism.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople allayed fears of the people of Mindanao that they might get caught in the crossfire of a conflict not of their own making.

In an interview in his room at the Ritz Carlton hotel here late Sunday, Ople said the US had only considered Turkey and Kuwait as their immediate reference points in an American-led invasion of Iraq.

But a possible war in the Persian Gulf could be averted if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accedes to the provisions of United Nations Resolution 1441 on the disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

Ople said the 114-member Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting here on February 24 and 25 is set to categorically reject the current threat of war in the Middle East.

The NAM, mainly composed of the world’s developing nations, is also expected to call on Iraq to surrender any weapons of mass destruction said to be in its arsenal.

Ople added that the US would not use their men to be stationed in Sulu in launching anti-terrorist campaigns, particularly against the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) in neighboring Southeast Asian nations.

The US soldiers going to Sulu would be joined by Filipino troops in a military training exercise dubbed as Balikatan 03-1.

He said "the US is relying on governments in the Southeast Asian region to deal with terrorism in their areas."

He noted that Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have been dealing with terrorism "quite effectively."

KUALA LUMPUR -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today called on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to initiate moves that would allay the world’s collective fears of a possible war in the Persian Gulf.

In a seven-minute speech before fellow heads of state and other state ministers during the plenary session of the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit here, the President said Saddam should "urgently negotiate a win-win settlement that will spare the heroic Iraqi people the agonies of a devastating war."

"Perhaps President Saddam might now wish to take the initiative and invite the UN Secretary General, the UN inspectors, representatives of doubting countries and of the international media to see for themselves if Iraq really possessed weapons of mass destruction," she said.

This, the President noted, was in accordance with the call of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made this morning in a speech read before the NAM by his representative.

"Perhaps, he may wish to show them all they want to see, so that the fears of the world can be assuaged, so that we can have peace," she added.

The President believed the Iraqi people, Iraq’s friends, the non-aligned nations and the world’s inhabitants of all faiths and persuasions would recognize the move as a "judicious act" and an "act of the highest statesmanship that will avoid war and save thousands of lives."

At the same time, "the Philippines joins the call of the international community for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to return to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty," the President said.

She cited the NAM’s consistent view that "security should be sought through nuclear disarmament, the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, as well as balanced and progressive conventional disarmament."

But the President stressed that "in our movement’s stand against terrorism and, more broadly, in our movement’s search for global security, we are not against any community of faith."

She called on both Iraq and the DPRK to go beyond the disarmament crisis and "beyond a strategic accommodation with the UN demands."

There would be a great future for an outward-looking and pluralistic Iraqi and the North Korean peoples, she said.

By being so, they could make friends with their neighbors – Kuwait, Iran and other protagonists for Iraq and the Republic of Korea for the DPRK, she explained.

Further, an "outward–looking and pluralistic Iraq and DPRK "can lead their people to peace and prosperity, and perpetuate the names of their leaders in history," she said.

She called on Iraqi and DPRK leaders to "take the pragmatic path and seek ways to integrate their rich cultural heritage with the modern world."

The President looked forward to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein ably turning Iraq "into an example of the continuing relevance of Islam in modernizing a nation for peace and development," so exemplified in Asia by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad.

The Chief Executive also cited the NAM for consistently being around as the "largest international bulwark of peace," next to the UN.

"It is a movement that has chosen to temper conflict … a movement that has offered its influential offices not only to stop the firing of weapons, but also to steward peace towards the welfare and benefit of the poor," she stressed.

The President said the NAM could "continue to be revitalized if we harness our unity towards promoting global peace and development in this new century … where global challenges have multiplied or deepened … where hundreds of millions still go hungry and unschooled against their will … where we awaken to the fact that no country is immune to tragedies inflicted by agents of discord and terror."

She called for mutual respect for sovereignty of states and a democratic system of international relations.

Malacanang today assured Mindanao political leaders that it would confer with them on the issue of joint Philippine and United States military exercises in Sulu at the proper time.

In a phone patch interview from Kuala Lumpur where President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is attending the 13th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye said the government would definitely hear the side of the local officials once the terms of reference (TOR) on the planned exercises is worked out.

"In due time, as soon as TOR are worked out, the process for consultation will take place. That is the framework within which we are working," Bunye said.

The Palace Spokesman also reiterated that the plan is to have American troops "not as combatants but to train and assist Filipino soldiers."

"And they’ll be going there to bring civic and humanitarian projects. And we hope that as in the case in Basilan, the assistance in this regard, especially the civic and humanitarian project, will be able to provide development assistance to the area," Bunye said.

KUALA LUMPUR—President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today said that despite some setbacks, her government would pursue the peace process in Mindanao with the help of its friends in the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM).

Speaking at the plenary session of the 13^th NAM Summit this afternoon, the President said that in 2002, her government resumed peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) through the efforts of Malaysia and Libya.

"Although we have encountered some setbacks, we hope to move forward soon by the generous participation of our allies in the Non-Aligned Movement," the President said.

The President recalled that in l996, the Philippine government also forged a peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) after four years of negotiations participated in by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).

She said that the NAM could continue to be revitalized on the basis of the first principles of Bandung, Indonesia where NAM was born.

"These are the ramparts of peace and development and this is the path the Philippines has taken," the President said.

The President was the fifth speaker on the summit’s Agenda Item 8, which calls for a review of the international of political and economic situation and the role of NAM in the 21^st century.

KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia will continue to play the role of a benevolent host and mediator when the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) continue peace negotiations.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad made this commitment in bilateral talks with President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, part of the latter’s working visit to Malaysia and attendance in the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit here.

In a separate bilateral, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdelrahman Mohamed Shalghem also promised the President of Libya’s full support and cooperation in enhancing the peace talks with the MILF.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye today told Filipino reporters at the Putrajaya World Trade Center here that the President met with Mahathir for 15 minutes, from 3:20 to 3:35 p.m.

Bunye said the bilateral focused on what Malaysia could do to help push and complete the peace process with the MILF, seen to eventually solve the three-decade-old Mindanao problem.

Malaysia would play the pivotal role of go-between to hasten the peace process, he said.

They also had the chance to talk about the welfare of Filipino expatriates in Sabah, he added.

During the bilateral with Shalghem, the President was informed of the keen interest of the Khadaffi Foundation, headed by the son of Libyan leader Moammar Khadaffi, to establish a palm oil plantation in Liguasan Marsh, North Cotabato.

Bunye said the plantation will be put up in joint venture with the National Development Corporation.

The government, in an unrelenting military offensive, recently retook the marsh area from criminal elements and secessionist rebels.

The Presidential Spokesman said the President likewise had the chance to have a bilateral meeting with Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa, Prime Minister of Bahrain.

They talked about the welfare of Filipino expatriates in Bahrain and the Middle East and what Bahrain could do to help in the event that a war erupts in the Persian Gulf.

The Bahrain premier also told the President of his plans to visit Manila on February 26 on his way home, Bunye said.

He added that following the President’s speech before the NAM delegates, leaders from the Islamic countries of Brunei Darussalam, Pakistan, Libya and Qatar stood to congratulate the President.