‘Ghost’ tripping

Lawmakers are back to sessions, and to limelight as well. Coming back from their month-long recess, many of them have just returned from their junkets abroad, both on official and personal trips. The respective leaderships of the Senate and the House of Representatives will bang the gavels to signal the resumption, starting today, of the first regular sessions of the 19th Congress.

That is, until adjournment of sessions anew for yet another month-long recess of our lawmakers.

Per jointly approved legislative calendar, both chambers will spend their Christmas break from Dec. 16 until Jan. 22 next year. The leaderships of both chambers though have committed to President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) to pass into law the proposed 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA) before they adjourn again. Barring delays, the Christmas recess is the end of their timeline to approve the proposed 2023 GAA bill.

Senate president Juan Miguel Zubiri flew back to Manila last week after his family vacation in the United States (US). This was after Zubiri went to Paris, France where he led an 8-Senator Delegation to an official visit from Oct. 24 to 27. French Parliament counterpart Senate President, Gérard Larcher invited them to visit the French Senate chambers on Oct.25.  Zubiri brought along Senate President Pro-Tempore Loren Legarda, Senate Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, Deputy Majority Leader Joseph Victor Ejercito, Senators Manuel Lapid, Maria Lourdes Nancy Binay, Grace Poe and Christopher Lawrence Go.

On a separate official trip, Senators Ronald Dela Rosa and Senator Francis Tolentino represented the Philippine Senate on Oct. 26 to 29 in the 30th Annual Meeting of the Asia Pacific Parliamentary Forum, hosted by the National Assembly of Thailand.

A bicameral Congressional delegation headed by Senator Sonny Angara and House Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto attended meetings at the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium held from Oct. 25 to 28. They were hosted in Brussels at the headquarters of the European Union (EU) Parliament. Daniel Caspary, current chairman of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) invited them over. The Senate contingent also included Senators Sherwin Gatchalian, Imee Marcos and Mark Villar.

The official statement released by the Office of the Senate President sought to justify the Europe trip of the Philippine Congressional Delegation to discuss face-to-face with their European counterparts relevant issues of mutual concerns. The same statement mentioned among other topics taken up was the EU’s recognition of Philippine-issued Standards of Training, Certification and Watch-keeping for Seafarers (STCW) Certificates of Filipino seafarers.”

If this matter was indeed taken up, our lawmakers hopefully already eased half of the problem on the supposed flagging down of Filipino seafarers in Europe. This was after the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) reportedly set a final deadline this month for the maritime schools in the Philippines to comply with the provisions of the 1978 International Convention on STCW.

On the other hand, Speaker and Leyte Rep. Martin Ferdinand Romualdez and his wife, Rep. Yedda Marie Romualdez of Tingog party list, have spent a family vacation with their children in the US. In fairness though, the Speaker first visited and commiserated with his constituents from the recent typhoons that hit Leyte.

Romualdez and Senior Deputy Majority Leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos have been most busy in official trips abroad. He along with the young Marcos were always included in the official delegation of PBBM’s state visits to Indonesia and Singapore and the official visit to the US at the United Nations General Assembly meeting held in New York one after the other last September.

Most likely, the presidential first cousin and the President’s son in Congress would be invited to join again PBBM’s trip to Cambodia this week. The President will attend his first ever ASEAN Leaders’ Summit in Phnom Penh and state visit to Cambodia on Nov. 9-13.

While sessions of the 19th Congress were ongoing, the Speaker and Senior Deputy Majority Leader were out on official trips abroad. There are at least ten other deputy Speakers to take over the helm. One of them is Pampanga Congresswoman and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Senior Deputy Speaker.

One time, however, both Romualdez and the young Marcos also joined PBBM on a clandestine weekend trip in October to Singapore to watch the F1 Grand Prix. Foes, critics, and the opposition ranks bitterly scored PBBM doing this as it happened a few days after Super Typhoon “Karding” devastated several provinces in Luzon it crossed.

In obvious digs anew at PBBM, his worst critics fanned new rumors in social media of his purported secret trip to Japan over the weekend while typhoon “Paeng” was unleashing its fury all over the country. This rumor was woven around PBBM being seen online video-conferencing when he presided the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) being held in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City last Saturday.

As it turned out, PBBM was spending weekend in his home province in Ilocos Norte. In social media post, PBBM was photographed inside his favorite diner in Laoag City from where he appeared online video-conferencing with the NDRRMC. From the video backgrounds showing the kitchen sink and microwave oven behind PBBM, netizens speculated that he might be in Japan. I could not still make heads or tails on how it became Japan trip. Geez.

To his credit, PBBM literally just laughed at it but returned the favors to his critics. He physically showed up to lead the distribution of relief goods to calamity victims in Noveleta, Cavite last Monday. At the end of his brief media interview, he greeted them in after-thought: “Welcome to Hokkaido.” Then waved goodbye to them in ghost tripping diss to those behind this tittle-tattle.