Many observers have wondered since Friday’s bombings near Manila whether Arroyo would go through with her planned one-day stopover in Honolulu. The president was slated to depart Honolulu early tomorrow for Los Cabos, Mexico, where she will attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

But if anything, the 55-year-old Arroyo sounded confident that the situation was in hand, announcing the arrest of suspects connected with the bombing, although she did not provide details of the case.

“We won’t let these incidents gestate for long,” the president said in remarks that opened a press conference held at the Filipino Community Center. “We are determined to fight terrorism to the end.”

Accompanied to Waipahu by Gov. and Mrs. Ben Cayetano, Arroyo earlier had toured the $13 million Filipino Community Center, planted a sapling of the narra — national tree of the Philippines — and shaken hundreds of hands. One belonged to Fely Ugalde, who burrowed through the crowd fronting the president’s car, idling for departure.

“I like get close,” she said, and received the payoff, pressing flesh with the president moments later.

That level of eagerness was the hallmark of today’s first public gathering on the whirlwind Arroyo tour. Community center officials had hoped to schedule separate meetings between the president and groups of Filipino veterans, students, and elders known as sakadas, the plantation workers who formed the backbone of Hawai‘i’s Filipino population.

Although critics have said Arroyo draws too firm a link between terrorism episodes in the Philippines and the al-Qaida network, Arroyo today underscored her conviction that “there are strong indications that al-Qaida is moving its center of gravity to Southeast Asia.”

“But whether or not (individual terrorists) are linked to al-Qaida, they’re terrorists, and we know terrorism is global,” she said. “There must be a global response to terrorism.”

Arroyo said she met this morning with Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander in chief of U.S. military forces in the Pacific, to discuss mutual training and security strategies but declined to disclose specifics. Her morning visit with U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye was to thank him for helping to spearhead the push for health benefits to Filipino-American World War II veterans.

Arroyo’s motorcade — preceded by a police helicopter, motorcycle and automotive guard — arrived at the center at about 2 p.m., following a luncheon at Washington Place The president had changed from her red arrival dress into a lavender suit and orchid lei. She left the center at around 3 p.m., bound for the Hilton Hawaiian Village for an evening gala sponsored by the Philippine Consulate and her overnight stay.

Arroyo and her husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, are accompanied on the trip by a delegation of 10 Cabinet advisers, said Arlene Macaisa, Philippine vice consul-general to Honolulu.

Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.