PNoy's Brunei visit lowest budgeted presidential trip since FVR — Ochoa

With only a P2-million allocation, President Benigno Aquino III’s two-day state visit to Brunei could be the lowest spending presidential trip since the time of former President Fidel V. Ramos. In a press statement, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. said the fund will cover the expenses for food, supplies, and other requirements for telecommunications of President Aquino and his 55-man delegation. Aquino went to Brunei upon the invitation of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. Ochoa said according to the Finance Office of the Office of the President, the total amount it prepared for Aquino’s Brunei state visit was the lowest budget it has earmarked for a presidential trip since the Ramos administration. “The foreign visits of the President are usually short but productive and reflect the President's commitment to make the most out of his trips abroad," he added. The President left Villamor Air Base Wednesday morning via presidential aircraft F-28, a chartered flight, to Bandar Seri Begawan Brunei Darussalam. He will return to the Philippines on June 2. He was accompanied by Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo, and Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. “The President's two-day state visit to Brunei seeks to reinforce our strong ties with one of our partners in the ASEAN. There are various areas of cooperation wherein the two countries can work together, and the President's visit will formalize several agreements that our government has been working on," Ochoa said. While in Brunei, Aquino will discuss cooperation on fighting transnational crimes and combating human and drug trafficking to further strengthen ties between the two members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN), as well as witness the signing of several memoranda of understanding on tourism, agriculture, shipping and ports, and sports development. Aquino will also make a sales pitch to lure investors and tackle global warming, rising oil prices and the Spratlys — a group of islands in the South China Sea being claimed wholly or partly by the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Malaysia, China and Taiwan. He is also expected to personally thank Brunei, which is a member of the International Monitoring Team in Mindanao, for its efforts in the peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and for its role, as member of the influential Organization of Islamic Conference Peace Committee on Southern Philippines, in ensuring that the peace deal with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) holds. — Amita O. Legaspi/KBK, GMA News