HONOLULU — President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo plans a brief visit Hawaii on September 16 to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of a marker commemorating the islands’ first Filipino immigrants.

The Associated Press said the Philippine Consul General’s Office told The Honolulu Advertiser that Arroyo will arrive on September 16 and is expected to stay less than 24 hours.

She will also place a memorial marker at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in honor of Filipino-American soldiers who fought during World War II.

Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle invited Arroyo to visit the state when the governor traveled to the Philippines in January, the newspaper reported.

The president will be stopping in Hawaii on her return from Finland, where she will attend a meeting of European and Asian leaders.

MANILA - President Arroyo will travel around the world in 12 days next month and Malacañang is counting on opposition groups “to behave” while the Chief Executive is away. The President is scheduled to visit Finland, Belgium, United Kingdom, Cuba, and Hawaii, United States of America to bolster the country’s economic and security relations early next month.

Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor appealed for a moratorium on political bickering when the President embarks on a five-nation working trip for a series of meetings with her foreign counterparts, businessmen, and the Filipino community.

Defensor said the opposition should learn “to rally behind the flag” while the President travels abroad, the same attitude he and other former opposition congressmen did during the Estrada administration.

“When we were the opposition, when President Estrada went to the United States, we kept our silence and rallied behind the flag because that’s the protocol if the head of state is out of the country,” he said last Monday in a media forum at the Sulo Hotel.

“We rallied behind the Republic not because of President Estrada but because he represented the Republic,” Defensor added.

In Helsinki, Finland, the President would attend the 6th Asia Europe Summit on September 10 and 11 for dialogue on trade, terrorism, environment protection, and energy security.  Afterwards, Mrs. Arroyo would fly to nearby  Brussels, Belgium to enhance Manila relations with the European Union, a group composed of 25 independent states in the region.  She is also slated to visit London, which recently discovered a plot to bomb US-bound airplanes that triggered a worldwide security alert in airports, to attract businessmen to invest in the country’s energy sector.  From Europe, the President will cross the Atlantic and travel to Havana, Cuba to attend the 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries.  Mrs. Arroyo will join leaders of 116 countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean to tackle proposals for cooperation, including assistance for combating illiteracy and training health personnel, and the efficient use of energy.  The President will then travel to Hawaii, USA to attend the centennial celebration of the first Filipino migration to the 50th American state before returning to Manila.  Arroyo earlier signed Proclamation 954 declaring 2006 as Hawaii-Filipino Centennial Year in the Philippines.  On Dec. 20, 1906, around 15 Filipino sacadas arrived in Hawaii to work as sugar plantation workers in Ola’a Island, setting off the waves of Filipino migration to Hawaii and to the mainland USA.

The upcoming foreign travel of the President comes less than a month after she survived a second impeachment attempt at the House of Representatives.

The allies of the President in the House junked the complaint on charges of election fraud, human rights violations, and corruption due to lack of substance.  Opposition and pro-impeachment groups, however, have threatened to bring their case in the streets to force the President to answer the charges leveled against her.

In Cuba, she will sit as one of the vice chairmen of the 14th Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Cuba from Sept. 11 to 16.

The Philippines was unanimously endorsed by the Coordinating Bureau of NAM during its meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York over the weekend.

In a statement, the country’s permanent representative to the UN Ambassador Lauro Baja Jr. confirmed that Mrs. Arroyo, as vice chairman, will help oversee the summit.