By Al S. Mendoza

 

WHEN is free time considered free time?

To be more precise, when does the President have free time?

What is free time, by the way?

It can be personal, impersonal or, in a polite way, official.

Like, by free time, we can mean the President is spending time not inside his office.

Stepping outside and getting fresh air is free time?

Puffing a ciggie or chomping on a Cohiba cigar?

So that by having a free time, he is not, strictly speaking, doing anything pertaining to the nation’s affairs.

Oh, yes, he can be in his office but he can still elect not to work.

And, by not working, that’d mean he has free time.

He can use his free time by doing things very personal, things very close to his heart.

Like fiddling on his cell phone and calling his wife, maybe, and telling her, “Hi, honey.  How ya doin’?”

Or calling his driver and asking him to buy a hotdog sandwich for lunch?

Or scribbling some poetry as he dabbled in literature in his school days?

US presidents were seen doing different things in their free time.

Bill Clinton loved to walk his dogs.

Barack Obama played basketball.

Donald Trump golfed a lot.

And current American president Joe Biden strolls in the park holding hands with his wife.

Closer to home, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., like Trump, spent much of his free time playing golf at Wack Wack Golf & Country Club in Mandaluyong.

And, like Clinton, Marcos also had flings with women.

While Clinton had Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern, Marcos had Dovie Beams, a B-movie Hollywood starlet.

But while Marcos admitted nothing to link him to Beams, Clinton, when cornered in the Lewinsky case in his impeachment trial, said:  “Yes, I had an inappropriate encounter with Miss Lewinsky.”

What that inappropriate encounter might be, your guess is as good as mine.

And now we go to Marcos’ son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Now the country’s 17th president, Mr. Bongbong was in a different kind of news lately after he was discovered to have flown to Singapore—on a private jet.

At first, the Palace was mum as to where his real whereabouts was after the mainstream media had leaked his trip to Singapore to watch the Formula One last weekend.

“Was it personal or official?” asked Sen. Koko Pimentel.  “Either way, the people whom he has sworn to serve without secrecy ought to know.”

Did Mr. Bongbong spend his own money or government money?

“It is immaterial whether he spent his own money or not,” said Lucas Bersamin, the newly-minted executive secretary.  “He has done his job to attract more investments in his trip.”

It is clear that the President used his free time to watch the Grand Prix race, the world’s No. 1 motorsport that he is so passionate about.

He is entitled to that, actually.

And by bringing home what he said were more trade deals from Singapore that went with his free time to savor the Formula One, he is absolved.

That’s how powerful presidents are.

They can justify anything—from having a free time to having no free time at all.

They define it.

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