Palace defends GMA's overseas trips

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang yesterday said the travel expenses incurred by President Arroyo from 2007 to 2009 reaped $1.2 billion in investments, grants and trade from the countries she visited.

Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar was responding to criticism from Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay that Mrs. Arroyo’s travel bill has already reached P2.5 billion since 2007.

Contrary to Binay’s claim, Olivar clarified that the President has spent less than P2.1 billion in travel expenses and not P2.5 billion since 2007.

“In the first place, his (Binay) numbers are all wrong,” Olivar said in a news briefing.

In 2007, the President spent P588 million on local and foreign travel, not P693 million as claimed by Binay, who is running for vice president under the Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino-United Opposition.

In 2008, the actual number was P587 million, not P762 million. And for 2009 and this year to date, Mrs. Arroyo’s travel expenses were P921 million, he said.

“All told, the President since 2007 has spent less than P2.1 billion on travel, which is only 80 percent of the mayor’s claim of P2.5 billion,” Olivar said.

“More important, as we already said last year, what we should look at are the benefits the President brought back from her travels. For 2007 and 2008 alone, from the countries visited by the President in those two years, we generated sales, investments, and grants of nearly $1.2 billion, or over half a trillion pesos,” he said.

“We certainly don’t claim all the credit for that, but it seems clear that this kind of return is not bad, on less than P2.1 billion worth of travel,” he said