Police forces coming back here for ASEAN

A week before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit resumes, the augmentation force of military and police personnel from all over the country will return to Cebu to guard the streets and key areas of the cities where summit activities will be held.

Regional police director Silverio Alarcio announced that the rest of the 1,420 military and police who were deployed in Cebu last month will start coming back today following the group from Region 9 that already arrived yesterday.

There are no significant changes from the original security plans and Alarcio said the dry run on the ceremonial routes will be conducted starting tomorrow during night time so as not to disrupt the flow of traffic.

In a telephone interview, Ambassador Victoriano Lecaros said senior officials of the participating countries will start arriving on January 9, although the police anticipate that some will already arrive a day earlier.

Lecaros also said the heads of state are expected to arrive on January 12, as their meetings will start on January 13. The other meetings with dialogue partners will commence on January 14.

Lecaros also said it is all systems go for the resumption of the summit, half-jokingly adding that only another storm can stop it.

Also today, the support staff of the National Organizing Committee will start arriving for the Cebu Organizing Committee meeting tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Marco Polo Plaza General Manager Hans Hauri announced in a forum that the hotel has already prepared its presidential suites for the delegates from China, Australia and New Zealand. China will have 180 delegates to be housed at the hotel Australia will have 40 while New Zealand is said to send 28 delegates.

The summit was called off last month just two days before it was supposed to officially start on December 10. The NOC stood firm that it was the advent of typhoon Seniang that caused the postponement but some suspected it was triggered by terrorism threats and the political storm brewing in Manila over Charter Change.

Incidentally, the postponement came just a day after the United States, Britain and Australia issued warnings of a threat of terrorist attacks in Cebu during the summit, although the warnings did not necessarily say that the threats had anything to do with the summit itself.

And even as observers say it was already difficult for the heads of state to reconvene, Ambassador Marciano Paynor, NOC secretary general, said there was already an agreement for all delegations to reconvene the earliest possible time at a time available to everyone. Days later, 15 heads of state confirmed to come.

Before 2006 closed, President Gloria Arroyo visited Cebu and inspected the Cebu International Convention Center and the newly built Most Important Person Lounge at the Mactan-Cebu International Airport, to which she expressed satisfaction.

The CICC will house the International Media Center and the different summit meetings. The signing of the ASEAN Charter, which will subsequently be known as the Cebu Declaration, will also be held there.

The ASEAN is composed of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The summit's dialogue partners include China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand for the East Asia Summit. - Joeberth M. Ocao and Ramil V. Ayuman