How lavish can it be?

As soon as Filipinos came to know of GMA’s and companions’ lavish dinner at a posh restaurant in New York, criticisms hurled at them came left and right. Time and again, her most rabid supporters spoke on her behalf, defending GMA like true slaves and ardent followers. The case in New York is just but one of the trips abroad by GMA with members of the First Family, cabinet officials, pro-administration Senators and like-minded Congressmen lugging behind, and surely brandishing taxpayer’s money with their many dine-outs. But the fact of the knowledge, first circulating in blogs, came to the public’s knowledge, which added more to the disgust and abomination of many Filipinos, who eke out on a few kilo of rice, noodles and tuyo as staple food.


Photograph: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images

Malacañang was quick to react and instinctively, readily concocted scapegoats to own up to the bill. First, it was Rep. Romualdez, and then Rep. Suarez echoed what was supposed to be a believable lie –that it was they who footed the bill, that no taxpayer's money was used, etc, etc. Now would anyone buy their alibi?



What isolated GMA more is that this ostentatious dinner happened in the midst of the late President Cory Aquino’s family opting to forego a state funeral that would cost the government a considerable amount of taxpayer’s money.

Another irony is, GMA boasts in her SONA that her program Hunger Mitigation Program aims to address the fast rising hunger rate in the country, with the President taking into consideration reports made by the Social Weather Station that said "Hunger has quadrupled since 2003.” Adding insult to the injury as a cliché goes.

In 2008, our country was ranked 5th in a survey by Gallup International-Voice of the People. The report said four out of every ten Filipinos have very little or no food at all on their tables from the past year.

For many Filipinos, what was reported recently – which Palace officials simply refer to as exaggerated, is a validation of how flamboyant and grandiose this present administration has become at the expense of the toiling masses.

To name a few of the dubious projects this present administration embarked on – the NBN-ZTE deal, if not exposed prematurely, would surely make a few privy officials a hundred times richer; roads constructed are being padded brazenly; millions of pesos spent for the repair of the House of Representatives in the recently concluded SONA; trips abroad with a hefty entourage; dinners, gowns, vehicles.

Indeed, where there is pomposity, corruption skulks. Where there is corruption, grandiosity lurks. This we learned from the past.