PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s foreign trips were something else. Their outcomes were not foreseeable, and at the outset, no promises are made. The government does not wish to risk inflating expectations. Always, it is just a sober assessment. After all, the president is aware that dealings with foreign trips require reliability, precision and finesse.
Hangchow, at the lower of the Yangtze River, is one of the most beautiful cities in China, built along romantic lakes, filled with exquisite gardens, temples and palaces, blessed with mild climate like an early spring. It’s the ancient center of culture, scholarship and poetry. According to the Chinese there were only two places worth seeing — heaven above and Hangchow below. The Great Wall is one of mankind’s most impressive creations.
The man who was to shape the destiny of the country until the next couple of years is once more in a foreign voyage to meet with other world leaders.
Every presidential foreign trip is a major logistic undertaking. The small advance party is proudly picked. They’re clean cut, effective and disciplined individuals who descend on every presidential stop days before his arrival. All around are the security, affecting an air of toughness, always striking an expedient pose. However, they’re pre-disposed to being gentle and less aggressive, especially to those close to the president, who skimmed the cream of the glorious power.
Also, accompanying the president are secretaries, a platoon of communicators, baggage handlers, and his immediate staff that must be able to reach any part of the country instantaneously. The president cannot travel without many assistants and departmental representatives for whom presence in a presidential trip is a status symbol (most have no authority except presidential confidence), even if they hardly see the president at all. In total, a presidential party is between 100-150 people depending on his discretion. It could be more austere.
It gets better. To move his whole entourage smoothly is no small feat. The press itself is a major challenge. You see, they must cover both the president’s arrival and his departure. Journalists must be present at all events, yet should still have the opportunity to write and file their stories. Broadcast and TV journalists simply report their situations live and are done.
This slightly baffled official party is the center of this wondrous undertaking. They are given a little book, outlining every event and every movement, together with charts showing where everyone is, to stand during ceremonies, the location of sleeping accommodations even participation in meeting and other vital information. This is when slavish obedience is the only safe course — though it taxes one’s strength and sanity.
Some are powerful in position but low in protocol rank. They’re seated below the salt, sometimes spending more time calculating the distance separating them from the president and the odds on reaching their cars before the presidential limo pulls out.
Usually President Duterte has his own “little big” worries. In addition to a folder of speeches are voluminous briefing texts prepared for him containing conceptual talking points for every country. Discussions and issues likely to be raised, as well as biographical materials about the world leaders he would meet.
In deference to the presidential predilections, the talking points sought are issues likely opened, including suggested responses, sensitive topics to avoid, and contingency moves in relation to unexpected or unanticipated issues.
One of the rewards of President Duterte’s foreign visits, however brief, is in relation to pitiless expanse of history. It is the opportunity it gave to the president to work with leader of other great countries and bridge barriers of ideology in the endless struggle of statesmen to rescue some permanence from the tenuousness of human foresight.
Somehow, as everyone listed to the presidential feats enumerated (interrupted only by applause) the future of our country seems to smile. But it is the present that’s filled with danger and pain.
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E-mail Mylah at [email protected]
