PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo embarked on Wednesday on a visit to Japan that will take her to Brazil in South America from June 22 to 25. This trip is the 21st foreign visit she has made during the past five years of her second presidency, from April 5, 2005, when she flew to the Vatican for the funeral of Pope John Paul II, a perfect excuse for travel for reasons of state.

During this period, she has made an average of five trips a year, visiting no less than 20 countries, in all continents except Africa. This coverage undisputedly makes her the most traveled Filipino president since the birth of the republic, accumulating air mileage credits (enough to provide her with a number of airline tickets after her retirement) unmatched by any other Filipino president.

Aside from this peripatetic record, Ms Arroyo has also earned the dubious distinction as the most unpopular president in public opinion polls since President Joseph Estrada.

Since April 2005, the President has traveled to: South Korea (December 2005), Malaysia (December 2005), Saudi Arabia and Macau (May 2006), the United Kingdom (September 2006), Hawaii (September 2006), China (October to November 2006), China (April 2007), Japan (May 2007), New Zealand (June 2007), the United States and Australia (September 2007), China (October 2007), Spain and the United Kingdom (December 2007), Switzerland and Dubai (January 2008), Hong Kong (March 2008), Beijing for the China Olympics (August 2008), the United States and Peru (November 2008), and Qatar (December 2008). From January to June 2009, she traveled four times, visiting Switzerland, Bahrain, Italy and Washington, D.C. in January, Thailand and Dubai in April, Russia, South Korea, Japan and Brazil in June.

There never has been a lack of reasons to justify the trips. There was always an international conference (for example, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January, a must for world leaders and economic authorities and bankers, in the midst of the 2009 global recession). There has always been the cover – all excuse of protecting the interests of overseas Filipino workers, which is supposed to explain why the Middle East countries, with their heavy concentration of OFWs, have always been on the itinerary. Aside from keeping the Philippine economy afloat and underwriting Philippine economic growth, the OFWs’ remittances have supplied the President with a continuing excuse for junketing.

Each trip was has been justified with claims for negotiations over contracts, or loans being solicited or negotiated with international financial institutions (including the World Bank in Washington). The trips to China involved negotiations on economic projects, including the controversial national broadband network, financed by Chinese loans that would link the archipelago in a telecommunication network.

Whether or not the negotiations on economic projects have benefited the country more than the expenses incurred during the trips or whether or not the trips have taken precious time off efforts needed to focus on domestic issues are questions that provoke public debate and require quantification to determine the relative costs and benefits. For example, the three trips she undertook to catch the attention of Barack Obama proved to be useless diplomatic exercises to put the Philippines on the radar screen of the foreign policy concerns of the new American presidency. Up until today, with Obama shaping his foreign policy priorities, Ms Arroyo’s junket diplomacy has failed to win his recognition as a strategic security and political ally of the United States in Asia-Paciific aside from lip service consisting of platitudes reiterating the “historical close relations” between the Philippines and the United States.

In her departure speech, the President said her Tokyo trip was intended to “justify our robust and vibrant partnership with (Japan) and to sustain the momentum resulting from the historic implementation of the Japan-Philippine Economic Agreement last December.” As if this reason was not enough to justify her presence in Japan, she said her talks with Japanese leaders and senior officials and business leaders would focus on security issues, including the nuclear threat posed by North Korea. She claimed she would sign two official development assistance packages worth a combined $456 million. But while ODAs are often claimed as important results of presidential travels, these are actually enduring holdovers of Philippine economic diplomacy built on our relationship of dependency and mendicancy with rich donor countries.

The President has less than a year before she steps down, but at the rate she has been traveling, she can take five more trips before next May, although this number can be reduced by the pressure of preparations for the next election.

The President’s packed travel itinerary over five years has conveyed the impression that time is running out on her to enjoy her travel perks at taxpayers’ expense and this is her last chance for a junketing spree. Her travels tend to reinforce the impression that she has to enjoy the perks before she is driven out of the Palace by an angry mob similar to the one that stormed the Palace and drove away Ferdinand Marcos.

In her remaining last few opportunities to travel, Ms Arroyo should not be signing any more economic agreements. She should be arranging for asylum in safe havens before the storm breaks out in Manila. Marcos never had the chance to look for asylum in a place of his choice aside from Hawaii, courtesy of the US Air Force. Ms Arroyo may not even have any choice at all.

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