During the course of their terms of office, Presidents of the Philippines are expected to make visits – State, official or working – to countries with which the Philippines has friendly relations. This is the norm in international diplomatic practice. The start of his or her term is a particularly busy time for a new Philippine Chief Executive because he is expected to introduce himself to, and establish personal ties with, his counterparts in friendly countries that are important to the Philippines. And those visits are often repeated, during a President’s term, in order to maintain the friendly relations with the countries concerned.
The countries most important to Philippine diplomacy and economic development are the US, China, Japan, the biggest countries of the European Union – Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain – Australia, Canada and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. These are the countries to which a new President goes during his first two years in office, with the Asean countries at the top of the Presidential travel program. Heads of State are expected to attend the opening of the annual UN General Assembly meeting, but Philippine Presidents have not considered that event a de rigueur occasion.
Considering that the visits to the above-indicated countries are trips required of the Chief Executive of this country, all that the occupant of Malacañang needs to do, when he or she has to go on one of the programmed official trips is to pack his or her bags, make a pre-departure statement, go abroad and perform his or her mission, return to this country and make an arrival statement briefly describing his or her trip.
Presidential voyages overseas are necessary, being undertaken to promote and strengthen this country’s relations with foreign countries and international institutions. The President does not have to justify the trips and explain why he or she had to visit this or that country. Merely by being in those countries, being seen by their peoples and talking with their leaders is sufficient explanation for the expenditures and costs associated with the trips. The Philippines has to engage the world, and the best person for that task is the head of its government.
But Philippine Presidents do not agree that they do not have to justify their official trips abroad, and it has become the practice for the occupants of Malacañang to try and convince the Filipino people that their trips were worth the expenses and costs in concrete terms. They have invariably tried to justify their foreign sojourns in terms of bacon-brought-home. Upon their arrival, they have invariably launched into quantifications of the achievements of their trips: amount of loans and grants received, investment agreements signed and financial pledges obtained. It’s as though (1) the President has to demonstrate that his trip accomplished something quantifiable and (2) the Chief Executive did bring home the bacon of the financial kind.
After his recent trip abroad, President Duterte followed the practice of his predecessors –former Presidents Aquino, Ramos, Estrada, Arroyo and Aquino – and brandished numbers attesting to his success in obtaining investments, loan packages and financial pledges. His visits to China, Japan, Malaysia and Vietnam, were all successes, he seemed to be saying, because he and his team brought home an assortment of financial goodies. He said, in his arrival statement, that he “got some $24 billion worth of investments and concessionary loans from his State visit to China and $19 billion worth of fresh investments from Japan.”
Not only does this practice of touting financial magnitude in arrival statements tend to demean Presidential trips abroad, but they are unnecessary. For the Filipino people, it is sufficient that the nation’s No. 1 official came home safe and sound and did a good job of representing their country abroad.
And there is also the element of risk. Presidents who brandish financial magnitudes in arrival statements run the risk that the numbers they brandish will be subjected to scrutiny and be found to be tentative and unfirm.
Under attack from skeptics, the Duterte administration has now admitted that most of the $24 billion figure mentioned by Mr. Duterte consisted of MOUs (memoranda of understanding), not hard deals. An official Japanese statement subsequently said that what resulted from President Duterte’s visit to Japan were “offers of investment” with a total value of $19 billion. And the Presidential spokesman capped the clarifications by saying that the MOUs “were not hard contracts but simply invitations.”
For the future, I wish that Presidents returning from trips abroad will simply get off the plane, say “It’s great to be home” to their welcomes, get into the Presidential limousine and speed off to Malacañang. No more recitals of investment deals signed, loans obtained and aid packages pledged. So demeaning. So unnecessary.
Let that practice be discarded.
E-mail: rudyromero777@yahoo.com
