The Liberal International (LI), the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) and the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) will participate in the meet.
The principal host of the affair, Senate President and Liberal Party of the Philippines head Franklin Drilon, said Aquino is expected to speak on the role of liberal democrats throughout the world in the face of economic and security challenges in the 21st century.
Aquino’s husband, slain senator Benigno Aquino Jr., is considered one of the martyrs of the LP. Aquino was the leading opposition politician during the Marcos regime before his assassination on Aug. 21, 1983.
Mrs. Aquino, whose only son Tarlac Rep. Benigno Aquino III is currently LP vice chairman, will also talk about the plight of millions of Filipino overseas contract workers and the issue of international migration in the global scene.
The joint CALD-ALDE-LI meeting that runs until Saturday will focus on population, migration and the globalization of labor, Drilon added.
After Manila, the visiting liberals,, including 30 members of parliament and senators, five incumbent ministers and a number of national and local officials, will also go to Cavite and Tagaytay City as part of the meet.
While in the country, the international liberal leaders will discuss the strengthening of ties among liberals worldwide.
They will also tackle the alarming and unabated killings of militant political leaders and journalists in the Philippines under the Arroyo administration, according to Bukidnon Rep. Nereus Acosta, concurrent LP and CALD secretary general. Drilon is the current CALD chairman.
"Obviously, any liberal democratic party will really look at this with great alarm because it goes fundamentally against all basic principles of liberal democracy, which is upholding civil rights (and) the primacy of individual freedom," said Acosta, referring to the rash of political killings, allegedly by death squads.
Since President Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001, hundreds of militant political leaders and journalists have been killed by suspected death squads.
Leftist groups claim the government is behind the killings, while government officials point to purges within leftist ranks.
The latest victims were leftist couple George Vigo and Maricel Alave-Vigo in Kidapawan City on Monday.
The International Federation of Journalists on Tuesday decried the killings.
IFJ affiliate, the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, reported that Vigo was a contributor to the Union of Catholic Asian News. His wife, Alave-Vigo hosted a program at the local radio station dxND.
Acosta said the international liberal leaders have expressed grave concerns over the killings, noting that the liberals’ position is that "everything has to be resolved in the political arena through dialogue, not by killing or taking of human life."
"This is the reason why we are against death penalty and any baseless action that infringes on that very basic right of the individual and the individual’s liberty," Acosta said.
He said terrorism and civil liberties would be the subjects of discussion by the leaders of CALD-ALDE-LI during the international academic conference at the Yuchengco Center of the De La Salle University in Manila on Friday.
The conference was organized by the National Institute for Policy Studies (NIPS), a liberal think tank, and the La Salle Institute for Governance (LSIG).
Terrorism and civil liberties, however, are just two of the issues to be discussed during the three-day gathering hosted by the LP, the current chair, with support from the German liberal foundation, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (FNF), according to Acosta.
The main focus of the joint CALD-ALDE-LI meeting will be population, migration, globalization of labor and all issues related to these concerns, he said.
"We added terrorism as a panel because that’s also migration, the movement of physical terrorism across boundaries with the Internet, with various Islamic cells not only in Southeast Asia but in Europe," he said.
Acosta said the CALD-ALDE-LI placed population, migration and globalization on top of their agenda for this year’s meeting in view of many issues arising from these areas of concern.
Issues related to overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), particularly in Europe, would be the main focus insofar as the Philippines is concerned, Acosta said.
In Europe, he said, the topic will cover the influx of Muslim population and the different issues that go with it including citizenship and the wearing of veil in school. — Christina Mendez