The circus that is GMA!

(Photo taken from Manuel Quezon iii's blog)

GMA(Gloria Macapagal Arroyo), president of the Republic of the Philippines has got to be one of the most stupid, insensitive and un-savvy political leaders of our times. She makes Laloo Prasad Yadav and Sarah Palin look Mensa-esque!

So here's what happened - She goes to the US, apparently, to meet Obama. Ends up eating a US$20,000 dinner with her cronies at an expensive NY restaurant. Gets caught out doing that by someone who Tweets. What ensues is a load of crap explanations by a bunch of people who are either really stupid or think the rest of the world is.

As she heads out, she's carrying a lot of dead baggage with her. Including Senator (and ex-film star) Lito Lapid who, as reported in the Inquirer said that he "had personally asked Ms Arroyo to take him along for the meeting with Obama at the Oval Office". He admitted he would do anything to have a photograph with the most powerful man in the world. He said, "I hope I’d be lucky enough to be chosen among the five that would be allowed to accompany the President when she meets Obama. This will be my first time ever to meet a US president in person because I might not have the chance anymore. So I asked the President herself to sign me up on this trip". (So Lito was really on a celeb spotting trip! On the upside - at least he's honest! And dumb!!)

Then there was the tragic passing of ex-President Cory Aquino. Apparently, right after GMA was informed about the death, she had a meeting with Hillary Clinton. She was so star-struck that she missed mentioning Cory's passing to Hillary. Hillary only found out a couple of hours later from a Filipina reporter! So after her rendez-vous with Hillary, GMA quickly recorded a rushed condolence message before heading out to NY for dinner!!

And what a dinner it was. She fed 15-20 people at a cost of US$20,000 (I know!!! HOLY COW and all that!!!). And this wasn't even an official dinner. So either the tax-payer is paying for this dinner or she gets paid a shit load of money! Neither should be happening! Heck - the dinner shouldn't be happening. For Pete's sake, a national icon has just passed and you're the president of the country!!! Dinner was at Le Cirque (very ironically - the Circus!) and was first reported on Twitter!!!

And then the cover ups! This is the best part!!! On one side you have her press secretary Cerge Remonde insisting that $20,000 is not expensive because "after all you're dining with the President of the Philippines". On the other you have senator Lapid saying he didn't understand what the big deal was. Apparently he doesn't like French food because he can't cope with all the cutlery changes between courses! One other official also made matters worse by saying that wasn't even the best expensive meal they had (which means there were others!).

While all of this is happening, the average Filipino is struggling to buy a 10 Peso sachet of detergent to wash her clothes. In other words - GMA - you're screwing with me!!

The final - and biggest - irony of this all is something that happened at the very start of the trip. GMA signed an executive order creating a "Local Hunger Task Force"!!!

*SIGH*

PS: Some people say that Obama took his wife to a play in NY and spent thousands of dollars flying from DC to NY on a private jet and all that - so whats the big deal!!! Well - that still doesn't make it right!!!