E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
The travel itch
Sunday, 08 17, 2008
Her dainty derrière had hardly warmed that stolen seat at the Palace, fresh from her conquest of George Bush and Washington, DC, with an embarrassing snub to boot from Barack Obama and John McCain, and there she was: airborne again, flying to watch Manny Pacquiao wave the Philippine flag at the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics. Or so we were told.
One wag says that if we count back from 2001, the accumulated distance of the foreign trips that President Gloria Arroyo has made, she could have already circumnavigated the world seven times over, once for every year she had been in office... and gone to the moon and returned to Earth twice.
My math-challenged brain fails to translate this comparison into actual mileage, in the same way that I become cerebrally challenged when I try to figure out the costs of these trips, knowing that on these out-of-the country excursions, she makes it a point to drag along a bevy of factotums, hangers on and ass kissers. No one — not even the Commission on Audit — has really kept track of the expenses for these trips. But the same wag has said that the costs of Arroyo’s globe-trotting could very well pay the national debt. I have no way of confirming the figures involved here, but I must congratulate that wag for that hyperbole. Which makes everyone bristle in anger over these misplaced priorities in the face of the domestic problems we face as a nation.
What keeps President Gloria Arroyo so enamored to take on foreign travels without let-up?
Against the expenses for all these trips, how much in foreign investments have been drummed up and actually reached our shores to perk up our economy? My critic Leina de Legazpi from Bacacay says “mayo.” As in “none.”
Against the usual claim of having established improved relations with the countries she visited, has Arroyo’s globe-trotting really globalized our labor markets such that we feel some inkling of progress in our lives? Have there been spectacular increases, for example, in the volume of employment opportunities, exports, and even influx of tourists? My cousin Caesar Barangan from Batac, who was not exactly in agreement with Arroyo’s immersive travels, says “awan.” As in “none.”
Against the promise of peace at last in Mindanao, and an end to the communist insurgency, has Arroyo’s globe-trotting to countries coddling the insurgents brought us to insurgency’s last gloaming and closer to the peace we all dream of? Reggie Pastrana, who just came from Madrid after a month’s stay in Sierra Leone as a capacity builder for the United Nations, says “nada” in his newly acquired idiom. As in “none.”
What then has Arroyo achieved, really, with that trip to Beijing?
The last time she was there, she stood as witness to the signing of a contract that has since exploded into the open as the ZTE-NBN Scandal. This time around, the ostensible reason was to attend the opening of the Beijing Olympics and — uh-oh, here we go again! — to witness the signing of a $150 million deal between a Chinese firm and a Filipino mining company headed by a Palace factotum.
Does Arroyo have to spend millions of dollars for a trip to China just to witness Pacquiao unfurl the Philippine tricolor? Or does she hope to rake in millions of dollars after this trip — for the country hopefully, or for somebody else? — as a witness to the signing of a contract, which is not even between governments? My Chinoy friend, Lu Kim Pe, says “$ #&%*@ $$$$.” As in “I don’t know.”
But relax. As the song goes, don’t worry; be happy. While Arroyo was out, enjoying herself abroad, she left her trusted firemen to quell the fires burning our own houses in Cotabato and elsewhere down South, with the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) aborning! This is misplaced priorities and misbegotten braggadocio, if you ask me. Was she hoping to show up the putative next president of the United States of America — Obama or McCain, whoever — that she has a “China Card” and he’d better not snub her the next time she goes to the USA with her beggar’s cup and braggart rhetorics?
Arroyo is now back in Manila, completing the last leg to complete her eighth circumnavigation of the globe, but her presence in Beijing has not done a whit to improve the chances of our athletes bagging at least one medal. The prices of food and oil are still on the upswing. A scandal in the Judiciary is keeping us riveted to our seats, wondering who’s next, what’s next and for how much. A man named Bayani, who is not exactly a hero, is still testing our patience with his experiments on the U-turns and sidewalks of our daily lives. Ballot box snatching in the ARMM elections is still the norm. The so-called People’s Initiative — an unabashed mode to perpetuate her in power — has resumed. The nation, as usual, is still in disarray.
Meanwhile, the rebels in Mindanao have stepped up their activities to enforce the cession to them of a big slice of Philippine territory. Many are getting killed in this fight among brothers. But not to worry — let Christians and Muslims kill each other off. God, who is supposed to be always on Arroyo’s side, will eventually sort out who the good and the bad guys are.
And when the bad guys triumph again, Arroyo will be off again, to the nearby sovereign state of BJE. And our nation be damned.
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