I assure you that Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is not among my favorite people. She’s lucky, though (I vote Joey Salceda’s “lucky bitch” for Quote of the Decade), that I’m not particularly fond either of many of those who criticize her. Happily, that results to what I’d like to believe are balanced views of the goings-on in this country.
Especially these days.
These days, when some people who think they are clever are juxtaposing Gloria’s “sinfulness” (a direct quote from a text message that circulated almost 2 weeks ago) with Cory Aquino’s perceived saintliness.
Bringing out the supposed stark contrast between the 2 woman presidents would be beneficial to politicians. It’s 9 months before the presidential elections, the season when kingmakers get a crack at installing their puppets or themselves. Surely, they would welcome anything that can weaken an incumbent who, to their consternation, just refuses to be a lame duck and may just be able to install a friendly successor, if not re-install herself.
I’m convinced that those opposed to the President can, and will, do anything to cast her in a worse light (she’s been in a bad light to begin with, remember?). And that may include carrying out an operation to specifically watch for Gloria’s blunders in the United States so they can magnify them back home. And link it in every possible way to Cory.
I’m not saying that it’s alright for Gloria and her coterie of congressmen and hangers-on to spend thousands of dollars in DC and Manhattan restaurants. I’m not saying either that the media should let it pass. I’m just suspicious about the keen interest that we have suddenly displayed in the President’s activities.
Four days before Gloria’s meeting with Barack Obama, the Washington Times ran an editorial echoing her local critics’ beef—that the attention the US president was according her was a way of affirming Gloria and all the alleged corruption, poor governance, and human rights violations that she represents.
Then on August 7, the New York Post’s gossip section reported that Gloria and her group spent $20,000 on a dinner at Le Cirque in New York, as if not minding “the economic downturn.” Four days later, it had a followup that their item created a “firestorm in her homeland, where memories of Imelda Marcos’ shoe collection are still fresh.” It quoted Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay estimating that the amount spent on that NY dinner could have fed “3,000 hungry families with three square meals.”
The following day, the Washington Post’s own gossip section said Gloria had an expensive dinner in Washington, DC, too, days before the NY dinner. The dinner at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse reportedly cost $15,000, including tip.
Now, come on, the American press didn’t condemn Gloria for wholesale, systematic cheating in the 2004 presidential elections. They’ve not lifted a finger to investigate her family’s undeclared assets in California. They’ve not even called for an audit of how her administration spends all sorts of assistance that they extend her country from the taxes paid by the people of the United States of America.
Then they suddenly cared about the expensive meals she had in their soil? (When the media finally got the sense to verify the reports with the restaurants involved, they were told by the managers that, sorry, the dinners didn’t cost as much as the reports had them.)
Where were they when Filipinos wanted an honest to goodness watchdog, on much bigger issues about our Chief Executive, in a foreign country where our investigative journalists’ reach was limited?
Back home, Gloria and her group have been criticized, aside from possibly spending taxpayers’ money on those dinners, for seemingly celebrating Cory Aquino’s death. The Bobby Van’s dinner supposedly happened hours after Cory passed away, and critics expected Gloria to mourn with the country by foregoing a lavish dinner.
But the dinner also came hours after Gloria’s meeting with Obama. We’re asking her not to celebrate that meeting as a sign of respect for Cory?
Wait there. We have 23 senators, around 200 congressmen, and some 1,700 governors and mayors. Did we honestly believe they all went into some sort of fasting before their PRs typed up their press statements condoling with Cory’s family? (Come to think of it, are we assuming they all grieved her passing away?)
Isn’t Jejomar Binay, the New York Post hero, also accused of amassing tremendous wealth illegally, that his family’s lavish lifestyle is a regular topic in Makati coffee shops?
Did Kris Aquino ever care about the 3,000 hungry families that Binay was talking about whenever she casually talked in showbiz interviews how much she spends on the most inane things?
Didn’t Kris Aquino stay at some point at the penthouse of the most expensive condominium in the Philippines because it was Gloria Arroyo’s payment for Kris’s endorsement of her presidential bid in 2004?
Who’s saying that Filipinos still condemn Imelda Marcos for her shoe collection? We were very excited when she started selling custom jewelry that she herself designs!
And didn’t an international magazine say many years ago that Kris Aquino, given her attitude and lifestyle, ironically reminded us of Imelda?
Where was this interest to get down to the details of Gloria’s overseas trips when it could still make a difference? She’s been in power for 9 years and nobody bothered to make her account for the hotel accommodations and the dinners she had in those 50 foreign trips before this latest one in the US. Now, on her last year in office, we suddenly wanted her to be transparent with what she spent on at every turn? It’s asking Gloria too much after we let her get away with these crimes in almost a decade.
And weren’t we, as a people, more interested in finding out whether our President lied about having enhanced breasts, than whether she’s gone to some parts of the world to build up her secret bank accounts?
I need some air. Our collective hypocrisy is choking me.
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