GMA's dinner hosts needed govt favors

“If you’re an invited guest normally you don’t ask the host what food he’ll serve or how much he paid.” That’s the alibi of President Arroyo’s six spokesmen for her lavish US dinners totaling $35,000 (P1,750,000). She was supposedly just invited to parties thrown by Reps. Danilo Suarez (Quezon) and Martin Romualdez (Leyte) as wedding anniversary gifts.

Yet the fact alone that she has so many drumbeaters shows Arroyo to be no ordinary person. As the country’s highest official it’s her duty to lead in enforcing the Constitution and anti-graft law. She broke both wining and dining at swanky US restaurants. The Charter enjoins public officials to live frugal and simple lives. The Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards forbids them from receiving gifts of value (upwards of P5,000).

Aides failed to shield her from disgrace, as they were themselves too busy gorging. It’s their job to screen menus and tabs for profligacy, assess if dinners would boost the Presidency, and detect if hosts are seeking favors.

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A regular escort in Arroyo’s foreign jaunts, Suarez boasts of hosting presidential dinners all the time. The Palace says fellow-escort Romualdez is also her frequent party giver. Do the two do it out of pure generosity? Or is it because they need something from government, and Arroyo is in best position to grant it?

Suarez is rushing state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines to lend him P1 billion by month’s end. The money is for Coco Resources Corp., where Suarez’s sister, three children and son-in-law are stockholders and directors. CRC supposedly will erect for $22.7 million a 10-megawatt power plant (originally planned for only 1-MW) in Quezon. A lawyers club deplores Suarez’s loan as behest. CRC lacks collateral and capital, proceeds will go to activities other than the plant, and corporate layering masks the crony, cries Sentro Gabay Legal ng Quezon. But Arroyo appoints directors to the DBP board. With a hand wave she can signal them to dole P1 billion.

Romualdez should be facing a P138-million rap at the Sandiganbayan. This is because during his short stint as its chairman in Oct. 2005, he caused the withdrawal of that amount from PCIBank. The cash represents interests and dividends from shares of Trans Middle East Equity, owned by Kokoy Romualdez, Martin’s dad and Imelda Romualdez Marcos’s brother. The anti-graft court had put the shares in escrow pending its ruling if ill gotten, as the PCGG claimed in 1986. It is the President who chooses PCGG commissioners. With a finger snap she can order them to desist from a case. The PCGG has not sought the return of the P138 million; instead it is pushing a settlement of Marcos-Romualdez cases.

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Arroyo’s spokesmen say the ruckus over the US dinners is politics as usual. “Will her critics never respect even the ceremonial importance of the Office of the President?” they fret.

Honoring Arroyo’s high post is all up to her aides, though, as they pick whom to seat beside her as host. Should it be Suarez, who in 1999-2000 was embroiled with name-dropping President Estrada and harassing businessmen? And Romualdez, with whose family Arroyo’s factotums are negotiating a resolution of multibillion-peso hidden-wealth raps?

“Treating Arroyo to a meal is a privilege money can’t buy,” Suarez beams. “My insights on some things were given attention by no less than the President.” For the $15,000 and $20,000 they spent hosting Arroyo, did he and Romualdez refrain from whispering to her their woes?

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Malacañang officials might want to watch the TV news clip www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtYr0H2oeMY and related videos. Then maybe, just maybe, they’d understand why Filipinos are incensed with Arroyo’s wasteful dinners.

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To my series on NGOs as pork barrel launderers, a backer of Pavia, Iloilo, mayor Arcadio Gorriceta reacts: “What happened in 2004 was due to ill-placed confidence. Neophyte Gorriceta’s sincere motive, in acceding to Rep. Augusto Syjuco, was to get free uniforms and bags for public school students. He did not give importance to Syjuco’s offer (of 5% commission), and in fact asked (Syjuco’s aide) Mr. Salvilla what the P250,000 was for. Upon learning its purpose, he told the municipal accountant and treasurer to deposit the ‘blank’ check in the municipal account. Pavia town gained from Tagipusuon Foundation, as all students and teachers in public schools were given free uniforms and bags.”

Syjuco, now Technical Education & Skills Development Authority head, also writes: “The events purportedly happened in 2004, a good five years ago but only a few months till election. The long and short of it is that this is plain black propaganda. The P5-million fund was for school supplies (bags, notebooks, pens) and uniforms (polo shorts and pants for males, blouses and skirts for females). Pavia is one of several towns in my district that benefited from my education-for-all project as congressman 13 years ago, continued by my wife, Congresswoman Judy. Under government procedures, local government units are natural conduits for these funds. There was no reason for bribery and I did not issue a personal check, nor is there one to back up any claim of commission”.

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“Every day is a day of judgment since we can only live a day at a time. The sentencing will come after death — life or death, innocent or guilty.” Shafts of Life, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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