PIMENTEL'S BOOK "JUNKETING: SENATORIAL STYLE" LAUNCHED THURSDAY

Are foreign trips undertaken by members of Congress worth the money of taxpayers or sponsors that is spent on such expensive activity?

The answer to this common question is found in a new book entitled "Junketing: Senatorial Style," authored by Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban), which is now off the press.

The 278-page book will be launched at 3 p.m. Thursday, May 22, 2008 at the Pecson Room, second floor of the Senate-GSIS Building on Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City, under the sponsorship of the Senate Library and the Senate Book Club.

The book is a compilation of the reports on 37 overseas trips that Pimentel undertook as a senator - mostly at the expense of the organizations or countries that invited him - from 2001 to 2007. Aside from faithfully performing his role as the leader of the Senate minority bloc and critic of the administration and party in power, Pimentel has the distinction of being the only lawmaker who has presented without fail, a written report on every conference or mission abroad that he attended.

Attending foreign conferences, according to Pimentel, is part of a legislator's job. "It's broadens his or her legislative horizons and makes the lawmaker less parochial. It is abused when the legislator concerned simply goes abroad and uses the occasion and conferences supposed to be attended as an excuse for going on a junket at the expense of the public till."

In one chapter of his book, Pimentel narrates that as a current member of the five-man Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), he and other committee members worked seven to eight hours a day or longer in week-long sessions. "And if anyone thinks we do a junket, he should guess again."

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, a former senator himself, will grace the launching of "Junketing: Senatorial Style" as guest-of-honor and speaker. Senate President Manuel Villar will speak for the Senate and Speaker Prospero "Boy" Nograles will speak for the House of Representatives at the book launching. Former Senate President Franklin Drilon and Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal will also say a few words. Congressman Antonio Cuenco, chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will introduce the guest speaker.

Secretary Romulo said the book "is sure to leave a great impression on those who will read it and is certain to demand a reexamination of the value of travel for the committed public official."

"As each page of Senator Pimentel's book will show, a journey's value is limited only by the objective of the traveler. For Senator Pimentel, every official trip affords an opportunity to learn new things about the world, to reexamine one's values and to renew one's beliefs that our world can change for the better," Romulo said in his foreword to the book.

In his preface of the book Senator Sharon Carstairs, of Canada remarked: "They may be called junkets but they are opportunities to reach out to others. They are opportunities to share our experiences with other parliamentarians, experiences which are often very different from our own and to learn from them. Opportunities to learn from those who are trying to enrich the world through the sharing of ideas and values. Opportunities to work, to meet and to know genuine heroes like Nene Pimentel."

Sen. Carstairs is the chairman of the IPU Committee on Human Rights of Parliamentarians.

Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile wrote on Pimentel's book: "It is fascinating reading. It is clear from his account that his participation in the conferences he writes of entailed a lot of work and provides useful insights."

Pimentel, who served as the 19th Senate President, also penned the following books: Local Government Code Revisited (2007), The Making of Human Security Act of 2007 (The Philippine Anti-Terrorism Law: Perceptions and Reality), Martial Law in the Philippines: My Story (2006), and the Cooperative Code of the Philippines: Theory and Practice with Atty. Mordino Cua as co-author (1994).