Mother knows best

It is noteworthy to learn that the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) has included again the members of media covering Malacañang Palace to be boarded on the same plane with the President on trips abroad. This we saw when President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) flew last week to Cambodia for the Leaders’ Summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The same media entourage who covered PBBM at Cambodia planed in back with him to Manila last Monday.

However, Prime Minister Hun Sen admitted yesterday being tested positive for COVID-19 a day after hosting the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit. PBBM along with his wife, First Lady Lisa Araneta-Marcos were personally welcomed and received by the Cambodian Prime Minister during official rites in Phnom Penh.

Acting Press Secretary Cheloy Garafil disclosed that PBBM underwent a COVID test yesterday as part of health protocols prior to his attending the Leaders’ Summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). PBBM will fly later today to Thailand to participate for the first time the APEC Leaders’ Summit.

Garafil did not reveal the results of PBBM’s latest COVID test, except, she cited PBBM convened and presided the National Economic Development Authority meeting at Malacañang yesterday. However, the President asked his Cabinet members in his official delegation in Cambodia that included Garafil to take a COVID test.

PBBM has twice contracted but recovered from COVID-19 infection. The first time he got COVID-19 was in 2020 when there was still no anti-COVID vaccine available in the Philippines. Jabbed already with both primary and booster shots, PBBM still got re-infected in July this year. Our own Malacañang reporter Helen Flores came out negative in her antigen test yesterday. She was on board the presidential plane along with other Malacañang press who covered in Cambodia.

Having covered Malacañang for the longest period, it is my personal experience that we in media gain better perspective and wider appreciation of official actions of the President while on board with him. We got to observe behind-the-scene activities, up close and personal the President and his official delegation. From Cabinet Secretaries down to the security escorts and other factotums joining the foreign trips, their expenses are likewise all funded out of taxpayers’ money.

This arrangement of media on board the plane on foreign trips of the President was the most logical and cost-effective for private media entities. After all, they pay out of their own resources their reporters and crew who cover the presidential trips abroad. From the plane fares, hotel accommodations, and per diem allowances of their own reporters and crew, private media entities shoulder all of these expenses to cover out-of the-country presidential trips.

On the other hand, the official trips abroad of government media, including staff personnel of the OPS are State-funded.

This practice of boarding the media entourage in presidential plane for trips abroad was started during the term of the late president Corazon Aquino until the shortened term of ousted president Joseph Estrada. This arrangement was stopped when former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo took over in January, 2001.

Thus, for nine years of Mrs. Arroyo’s term, the presidential coverage abroad became too costly and too expensive for both the big or small private media entities. The OPS then required media members who signed up for the presidential coverage abroad must fly a day or days ahead, and depart a day, or days later. It was continued on during the term of the late president Benigno Simeon Aquino III all the way to former president Rodrigo Duterte.

For someone who publicly frowned upon long-haul plane travels, the former Davao City Mayor embarked on 41 state and official visits abroad from 2016 until 2019. But it was the late president Fidel Ramos who logged the most number of foreign and local travels during his six-year term in office. These included “must” attendance to the Leaders’ Summits like the annual ASEAN and APEC.

Fortunately, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic here in the Philippines in March, 2020 cut all foreign trips for the rest of the term of the ex-president Duterte.

Adapting COVID health protocols, Mr. Duterte along with other heads of states had to attend the yearly Leaders’ Summits of the ASEAN and APEC conducted through Zoom Webinar tele-conferencing. These proved to be not only COVID safe but also entailed less costs for many governments, especially for host-countries.

According to a Rappler account, PBBM reportedly has “had the most number of international travels during the first 100 days in office among most recent Philippine presidents” who served after the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986. PBBM first made state visits to Indonesia and Singapore last September, and attended the 77th United Nations General Assembly in New York, also in the same month.

And, a clandestine trip to Singapore last month with his wife, son, Ilocos Norte Rep.Sandro Marcos and other presidential relatives. Their visit came out in social media which showed photos of their presence there as they watched the resumption this year of the F1 Grand prix. This stirred a maelstrom of criticisms at the home front. As later explained by Malacañang, PBBM and his official party were invited by the Singapore government to drum up the Grand Prix that had been suspended for two years due to the COVID pandemic.

PBBM has been fully booked for more trips abroad.

The President is also expected to attend the ASEAN-EU Commemorative Summit in Brussels, Belgium this December. He earlier accepted the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping for a state visit in Beijing on Jan. 3 to 5 next year. He has yet to decide whether he would participate in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 16 to 20 also next year.

“When do you stay in office?” PBBM quoted his mother, former First Lady Imelda Marcos asked him. A jetsetter herself in the past, his mother knows best.