Reports from Washington, D.C. described President Gloria Arroyo as “in high spirits” as US President Barack Obama welcomed her to the White House during her working visit late last week.

Proof of that was the accompanying photos in the front pages and on television coverage where the two heads of state were shown in relaxed and informal mode of manners.

Even the banters were good-natured and animated, the report noted.

“I’m sure she thinks I’m much younger-looking than she expected,” the U.S. president quipped even before President Arroyo could answer when asked by a member of the media about her impression of him. It was a personal narrative presumably meant to break the ice, so to speak.

The camera caught them lifted up in laughter with Obama reaching to touch her arm in self-amusement.

In a more formal way, President Obama lauded his Philippine counterpart for the quality of her leadership “in governance and global engagements.” He particularly observed the efforts of the Arroyo administration in confronting the country’s problem on terrorism, and the pursuit of the peace process in Mindanao.

Immediately, the impression was that Obama is well-briefed on Philippine situation, including the government’s stand against human rights violations taking place in Burma and the nuclear proliferation issue involving North Korea.

It is recalled that President Arroyo was the first among the ASEAN leaders to raise the question about Myanmar’s continued house arrest of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

This position on Myanmar’s human rights infractions has been consistently reiterated by Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo who called as recently as this week for the dismissal of the current case against the 64-year old Suu Kyi and for her release from house arrest.

Romulo has also voiced the widespread suspicion that the case against Suu Kyi is meant to keep her behind bars in time for Myanmar’s elections next year.

All this, among others, plus the RP-European Union Partnership and Cooperation announced at the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing last year have been hailed by the Obama government as a laudable move in the country’s international engagements.

With all those positive comments and expressions of trust and recognition of President Arroyo’s leadership coming from the U.S. president himself, it is clear all the hostile and harsh criticisms hurled at her by her resentful enemies have been rebuffed and dismissed out of hand by the White House itself.

It must be noted that in the letter addressed to President Obama in time for Mrs. Arroyo’s Washington visit, the language used to discredit her was so poor and brutal that, in all probability, it turned off the decency of the first black American president.

The letter, for instance, mentions among others of “the curse of decadence that Mrs. Arroyo represents.”

The point is that, if she is as bad as they portray her to be before their new-found American patron, why haven’t the Filipino people, by themselves and in unison, rise up in righteous indignation like they did when they booted out of Malacañang two presidents, not so long ago?

Instead, what the letter writers did was to implore the American president “to be an instrument of change for the common good of the long suffering Filipino people.”

What has happened to our nationalist ideal? Aren’t they the nationalists that they so passionately proclaim themselves to be?

The letter was signed by former Vice-President Teofisto Guingona, Jr., two former Senate presidents, four former senators, and 10 other former government officials who are known Gloria Arroyo haters.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)