Downright Obscene

This brief article came out in today’s edition (August 7) of the New York Post criticizing the amount of money our dear President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) spent on a party for her entourage.  The party was held at the very upscale club called Le Cirque.  The report also said that several bottles of very expensive wine were ordered that pushed the evening’s dinner tab to around $20,000. 

This must be the President’s way of congratulating herself and her large entourage for a job very well done.  I don’t know how big her entourage was but it smacks of poor taste and judgment to host such a lavish party on a trip whose main purpose was to schmooze with a new American President in order to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars more in new economic and military aid. 

I have nothing against throwing a party for one’s staff or supporters.  Any leader is entitled to do that and a good leader should do that as a sign of his/her appreciation to his/her staff for a job well done.  It’s a morale booster.  However, the reason why GMA suffers from a serious and irreparable image problem is that she has seriously flawed political instincts.  Throwing a party at an upscale New York club shows a serious lack of sound judgment and/or gross insensitivity on her part.  In a city like New York, there are a lot of places where she could have thrown a nice party that would have cost the Filipino taxpayers a lot less.  

Even if somebody else had organized the party for her, she should have put her foot down and asked the organizers to select a more moderately priced venue instead.  She should have been extremely mindful of the negative message and image that will be sent when a leader from a poor Third World country hosts a party in a ritzy club where expensive wine was flowing like water.  This is a public relations disaster and she should have known better.   

The late Senator Jose Diokno used the word “obscene” to describe the lavish parties that the Marcoses used to throw in Malacanang back in the 1970s and early 1980s.  Such parties were held at a time when the country was up to its eyeballs in debt and millions were going hungry.  It is sad, disappointing and extremely frustrating that 30 years later, in spite of all the worsening poverty around them, our leaders still haven’t learned a damn thing.