Palace presents report belying $20,000 dinner tab

MANILA, Philippines - After days of trying to fend off criticism of President Arroyo’s supposedly extravagant dinners in the US, Malacañang bared yesterday the existence of a report by a Filipino-American weekly newspaper belying some of the details of the controversy.

In a letter to Press Secretary Cerge Remonde dated Aug. 14, consul general Cecilia Rebong of the New York consulate said an article by Manny Caballero in the Filipino Reporter called “a lie” a report in the New York Post that the dinner for Mrs. Arroyo and her entourage in the posh Le Cirque restaurant cost $20,000 or around P1 million.

Rebong attached a copy of the Filipino Reporter article in her letter to Remonde. 

“It’s a lie. It’s far from the truth,” the article quoted Le Cirque’s contact manager Mario Wainer as saying.

Wainer declined to disclose the actual bill for the controversial dinner out of respect for customers.

Wainer said, “We do not involve ourselves in politics,” when asked to clarify conflicting claims from New York and Manila regarding the controversy.

Remonde said the Filipino Reporter article “speaks for itself.”

The Le Cirque dinner as well as an earlier one in Bobby Van’s steakhouse in Washington DC had sparked an uproar in the Philippines, with administration critics castigating Mrs. Arroyo for being insensitive to the plight of the poor. 

But Malacañang denied the dinners were lavish and paid for by taxpayers even as it denounced critics as well as the media for taking advantage of the issue to destroy the image of the President.

It earlier claimed that Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez paid for the dinner although it did not contest the $20,000 figure. Romualdez himself has been avoiding the media.

Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez later claimed it was he who footed the $15,000 bill at Bobby Van’s and said the dinner was for the celebration of the Arroyos’ wedding anniversary.

He said his expenses would have been higher had they found seats at Morton’s steakhouse, his first choice.

Two more defenders

Two administration lawmakers, meanwhile, said critics of Mrs. Arroyo are using the issue of her alleged excessive foreign travel expenditures as campaign vehicle.

“Too much politics. They will say anything at the expense of President Arroyo, so they’ll be in the news in aid of their senatorial obsession,” said Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo, chairman of the House committee on good government and public accountability.

“They’re using the President to promote their personal ambition. People are tired of negative politics. What they want is for these senatorial wannabes from the opposition to bare their agenda for the country and the Filipino people, if they have any,” Bulacan Rep. Lorna Silverio said.

The two did not name names but they were apparently referring to Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona III who cited a Commission on Audit report showing Mrs. Arroyo’s P1.6-billion foreign travel overspending.

Guingona is included in the senatorial line-up of the Nacionalista Party.

Romualdo said the COA report only proved that everything was accounted for in the President’s foreign trips.

“We’re confident that the Palace has enough basis and justification for the trips and expenses. Let’s not politicize the issue,” he said.

“It’s wrong and unfair to malign the President whom critics fail to realize has to work doubly hard and risk her health and security in every foreign trip she makes to promote our country’s interest,” he added.

Silverio, for her part, said the series of attacks on the President showed the desperation of Mrs. Arroyo’s critics in seeking higher office. Silverio chairs the House committee on inter-parliamentary relations and diplomacy.

Silverio said the country’s uninterrupted growth for 36 quarters and its recession-free status attest to the success and significance of the President’s foreign travels. “Critics just cannot accept this truth,” she said.

Romualdo said records from the Department of Budget and Management showed that Mrs. Arroyo only spent P233.8 million for her trips compared to the allocation of P244.6 million, and that no augmentation was made on the Contingency Fund to accommodate her travel expenses.

But Guingona, who belongs to the House opposition bloc, said Mrs. Arroyo used up the government’s P800-million contingency fund for emergencies like calamities for her frequent foreign trips.

“She exhausted not only Malacañang’s travel funds but also the P800-million appropriation for emergencies in the 2008 national budget,” he told radio station dzMM. He based his revelation on a COA report submitted to Speaker Prospero Nograles recently.

“I have a copy of the report. An assistant commissioner of COA even briefed us on their shocking findings,” he said.

Guingona said the COA findings show that the 2008 Contingency Fund was not enough for foreign travels and Mrs. Arroyo had to augment it by P120 million.

“The augmentation was also exhausted,” he added.

Guingona also said the President overspent for her foreign travels between 2003 and 2007 by P1.6 billion. She has only P1.1 billion under the annual budgets but she spent P2.7 billion over that period, he said.

He said the House of Representatives should have discovered and brought to light the excess spending during the budget hearings. “But the House is dominated by the President’s allies, so they just turn a blind eye,” he said.

He accused the President of violating the annual budget law “because she could not augment what Congress had approved and authorized her to spend.”

He said he would demand during the forthcoming budget hearings details on how and when Malacañang’s travel funds and the appropriation for contingencies had been used.

Mrs. Arroyo’s latest foreign travel was her weeklong working visit to the United States more than two weeks ago.

Limit entourage

Sen. Loren Legarda said there should be an absolute limit to the number of the President’s companions during foreign trips.

“The problem with presidential trips is that they are bloated by hangers-on, government officials whose offices barely had anything to do with the purposes of the foreign travels, as well as by allies of the President in Congress,” Legarda said in a statement.

“It is disturbing the way taxpayers’ money had been used for these trips when they could have been spent on providing basic services to our people,” she added.

Legarda lamented the practice of too many lawmakers joining such trips when two or three representatives from each of the two houses of Congress should be more than enough to accomplish the purpose of filing whatever pieces of legislation need to be filed in relation to the foreign travel of the President.

“There ought to be delicadeza (propriety) so that many of our people would not see such trips as junkets at the expense of the Filipino people, who pay for them through their taxes,” Legarda said.

‘Just tell the truth’

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who was part of the official delegation in the US but did not join the dinners, said the Palace had not been forthcoming when talking about the expenses during foreign trips.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson proposed an investigation into the foreign trips of Mrs. Arroyo as he noted that these had been too frequent when she was supposed to be on the way out already.

Santiago said for Malacañang to get out of trouble, especially as regards the dinners, they must offer an explanation to the people.

“It’s very easy, just tell the truth. How many people attended the dinner? In effect, how much per person was paid? Now if it will show that the cost per person would be very high, you could base from there whether it was really manifestly excessive,” Santiago said.

“Now, these people surrounding the President should not get her into trouble by inviting her to the top-level, the highest-priced fine dining places,” Santiago said.

“She can be invited in respectable, decent places apt for presidents like her that offer reasonable prices,” Santiago said.

Santiago said she found it odd and suspicious that congressmen had paid for the dinners.

She said “anger” on the part of Palace officials would not to be able to take the place of a “plausible, rationale explanation” because Filipinos were known for their hospitality and would understand if things were explained to them properly.

“While Le Cirque (in New York) may be known as an expensive place, if the number of people who attended that dinner would justify the cost, divided among them, for sure that would be acceptable to the people,” Santiago said. – With Delon Porcalla and Aurea Calica