EDITORIAL - 'A private visit'

Presidents live in a fishbowl, although they are still entitled to some measure of privacy. The use of public funds curtails that privacy, especially when the funds are used for items or activities that are perceived to be unnecessary. In such cases, taxpayers deserve an explanation for the expenditure.

President Arroyo’s visit to Colombia on her way from Japan to Brazil is one such case. The visit to Colombia was not announced by Malacañang, but mass media got wind of it and reported the side trip. Yesterday, amid ugly speculation about the secrecy surrounding the stopover, Palace officials said the visit was not secret but a private one.

Does this mean the President and her entourage spent private money for the stopover? With the Philippine president entitled to contingency and intelligence funds whose utilization requires little or no public accounting, it is easy for an unscrupulous chief executive to blur the line between official and private use of public money. The blurring of the line becomes more appalling when done amid criticism of the massive expenditures for the President’s monthly — and sometimes bimonthly — foreign trips in a year of recession.

At the slightest excuse, the President has been packing her bags and taking off to see the world, with relatives, nannies and friends in tow. Rarely are the bills footed by the countries she visits, and the stopover in Colombia was certainly not one of those rare occasions. In the interest of transparency and accountability in the use of scarce funds, the public deserves an explanation for this trip.