MANILA, Philippines - A P1-million dinner tab in Manila can be too much but not in New York.
Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez said that he could have volunteered to foot the bill for the Le Cirque dinner celebrating the wedding anniversary of the First Couple had Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez not beat him to it.
“I don’t know why they are making such a big deal, it’s New York where everything is more expensive than Manila. We were more than 50 in our group, the President’s security and the secret service joined us,’’ said Suarez in a phone interview.
Suarez said the First Couple and her group were invited for dinner by Romualdez’s brother (“a well-established architect in New York who lived at the Hamptons’’) at the summer resort’s yacht club but it was full. He said they decided to move instead to Le Cirque.
Suarez confirmed the Palace’s claim that it was Romualdez who paid for the dinner.
He said there was nothing to apologize for the dinner because he would have done the same since it was meant to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the First Couple. “I planned to do the same, maybe next time,’’ said Suarez.
The activist group Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) urged House Speaker Prospero Nograles to reprimand his peers that joined the lavish dinner, specifically Romualdez, Suarez and Mindoro Occidental Amelita Villarosa.
Nograles was part of the President’s entourage in her visit to the White House but flew afterwards to Thailand for the Asean [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] parliament meeting.
Pamalakaya said the House leadership should speak out on the “highly immoral’’ dinner extravaganza and “issue a public denouncement and apology for the aristocracy and arrogance of President Arroyo, the members of her family and congressmen allied with Malacańang.‘’
It called Press Secretary Cerge Remonde a “certified liar’’ for defending the dinner.
