When President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo attends the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) slated this weekend in China’s southernmost island province of Hainan, she will be in elite company.

More than 200 senior government officials and 600 top businessmen from around the world, including the wealthiest of them all, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, are among those who have confirmed their attendance to the April 20-22 forum which this year will look for new approaches and ideas for sustainable economic development in Asia.

BFA is a non-governmental, non-profit international organization modelled after the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.

Founded by China and 26 Australasian states in February 2001, it is held annually in the tropical seaside town of Boao as a high-level forum for governments, businesses, experts and scholars. The focus of discussion is economics, the society, and the environment.

President Arroyo will be among an array of speakers who also include Gates, Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, and Nobel Prize Laureate Muhammad Yunus. They are expected to discuss the emerging opportunities and accompanying challenges facing Asia now and in the future.

The reputation of the Boao Forum has been favorably compared to the Davos Forum, named after a Swiss town, where the World Economic Forum originated. President Arroyo also attended this forum last January, along with other world leaders and top corporate business executives.

This year's BFA theme is "Asia Winning in Today's Global Economy -- Innovation and Sustainable Development."

Discussions will include such heavyweight topics as the integration of the Middle East and South Asia subcontinents into the Asian economy, and the balanced development of China, India and other Asian nations.

Describing the successive attacks this week on provincial media practitioners as "despicable," President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has ordered the local law enforcement agencies to "carry out a swift and thorough investigation."

In a statement, Press Secretary and concurrent Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio R. Bunye said attacks on journalists have "no place in a democracy that upholds press freedom."

Last Wednesday, Radyo ng Bayan field reporter Mark Palacios was found dead in Barangay Mapalad in Sta. Rosa, Nueva Ecija, with a gunshot wound through the chin and his body battered.

This morning, Philippine Daily Inquirer Southern Luzon correspondent Delfin Mallari, Jr. was wounded when two men riding tandem on a motorcycle ambushed him and DZMM’s Johnny Glorioso while they were on their way to a local radio station in Lucena City.

Reports said Mallari was already pronounced out of danger after he was operated on to remove the slug that hit the left side of his body.

Palacios’ death brought to 51 the number of journalists, mostly radio broadcasters in the provinces, killed since 2001.

President Arroyo has openly expressed her determination to put an end to the killings of journalists and activists that she has created the Melo Commission to look into such cases.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is extending the Philippine government’s "full cooperation" in the United States ongoing investigation on the circumstances that led to the death of US Peace Corps volunteer Julia Campbell.

Press Secretary and concurrent Presidential Spokesperson Ignacio R. Bunye said in a statement this morning the President "is saddened" by the death of the Peace Corps worker.

"The President is saddened by the death of Campbell and the government is extending its full cooperation to the US authorities in investigating the circumstances that led to it," Bunye said.

"It is unfortunate that a committed and selfless person, who has, based on the work she has done in Sorsogon, obviously grown to love our country, met a tragic end here," he added.

Campbell’s body was found Wednesday buried in a shallow grave at a dry creek in Barangay Batad, Ifugao, by one of the 40 locals who volunteered to locate Campbell after she was last seen on April 8 in a hilly area of Barangay Batad.

Campbell, who was from Fairfax, Virginia, was among the 137 US Peace Corps volunteers in the Philippines. She was a journalist for the New York Times and other various newspapers for 15 years when she decided to leave her job after the Sept. 11 World Trade Center bombing.

She served in ecological and educational projects in Southern Luzon since March 2005. Her latest assignment was in Sorsogon in the Bicol region, particularly in projects for the typhoon Reming’s victims.

The new ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic presented his credentials to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the Rizal Hall in Malacaņang this afternoon.

The President, in rust-colored pant suit, welcomed Ambassador Leuane Sombounkhan in the presence of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo.

The new ambassador came to the Palace with a delegation of six people, including his wife. He replaced former Ambassador to the Philippines Phiane Philakone who was recalled to Vientiane a few months back after completing his assignment in the Philippines since June 2001.

The President has been asked to participate in the opening Plenary Session of the Boao Forum along with Bill Gates, Muhammad Yunus and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz of Pakistan.

The President brings to the Forum her expertise and strong grasp of regional and geo-political matters in her capacity as President and as Chair of ASEAN. 

The audience is made up of over 1,300 delegates from business, government, academia and the media, among other disciplines.

The topic of the opening Plenary Session is   "Asia Driving Global Growth." Themes that run throughout the agenda include Asian economic dynamism and the need for innovation tempered by the recognition of the need for sustainable development including energy efficiency.

The Boao Forum website also lists Wu Bangguo, Chairman, Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China as a keynote speaker, and former President Fidel Ramos and Chey Tae Won, Chairman of SK Group as individuals offering opening remarks.

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