Bongbong Marcos’ trip to Singapore ‘partly official, partly personal’ — Bersamin

FILE PHOTO: Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (right) meets with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos during the F1 Grand Prix event. (Photo from Lee Hsien Loong’s FB Page)

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.’s trip to Singapore, where the F1 Grand Prix race was held, was “partly official, partly personal,” executive secretary Lucas Bersamin said on Wednesday.

Early this month, Marcos went to the city-state and met with Singaporean Minister for Manpower Tan See Ling on the sidelines of the race.

During the Senate committee on finance’s hearing on the 2023 budgets of the Office of the President and the Presidential Management Staff, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III asked if the said trip was personal or official.

Bersamin replied: “No, it was mixed. You may put it that way because the President was actually invited by the Prime Minister of Singapore to join him in the revival of that F1 racing in Singapore.

“The President most likely saw an opportunity for him to expand on the goodwill that he generated when he made the official state visit… The visit there is partly official, partly personal.”

Earlier, Bersamin was quizzed about who funded the president’s trip, to which he responded, “irrelevant.”

The executive secretary explained that he answered that way as it was difficult to distinguish which part of the trip was official and which part was personal.

“I cannot know, it’s impossible to say which part of it is personal [and] which part is official. But actually, hindi po personal ‘yun eh. Dapat po malinaw sa atin ‘yun,” Bersamin said during the hearing.

(But actually, that is not just personal. That should be clear.)

But for Pimentel, the trip was official as it stemmed from an invitation from Singapore’s prime minister.

“The root of it all is the invitation from the Prime Minister of Singapore to Mr. Bongbong Marcos as president of the Republic of the Philippines. So, therefore, that was an official trip,” the minority leader asserted.
Pimentel previously said that the president’s “periodic breaks” should be announced.

Bersamin, however, pointed out that it could not be announced for security reasons.

The executive secretary likewise noted that the president met with foreign leaders who “may have interest in Philippine governance and Philippine business” during the trip to Singapore.— with Kristelle Razon,  INQUIRER.net trainee

JMS