Palace Won't Say Sorry For The Le Cirque Bill

As the alleged $20,000 bill on a dinner held at the worlds famous Le Cirque in New York City circulating around the web and one of the hottest issues in politics.

BUT Malacañang won't say sorry for that as Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said when asked if the palace would apologize. “If the dinner was really ostentatious, then there has to be an apology, but it wasn’t ostentatious and I stand by that”, he said pointing to Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez as the guest who paid for the dinner that a New York tabloid said cost $20,000 (almost P1 million).

“That is unfair. It was not FM (Ferdinand Martin Romualdez) but his brother Daniel who footed the bill,” lawyer Nick Esmale, the congressman’s legal and media liaison officer, said on the phone. Daniel is an architect living in New York since 1986, was among the most successful Filipinos working and among the highest paid in his field.

Representative Romualdez is a nephew of former first lady Imelda Marcos, one of the richest members of the House of Representatives, and the senior vice president for finance of the ruling Lakas-Kampi-CMD. He is considered one of Ms Arroyo’s closest allies.

In what he promised to be Malacañang’s “final” statement on the matter, Remonde maintained that Ms Arroyo and First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo were simply invited to the dinner by Romualdez. Adding that it is impolite for the First Couple to turn down an invitation graciously made by a distinguished congressman.

Remonde added that the source is a blog and that said blog made assumptions about how the bill could have reached close to $20,000, based on the menu. One computation making the rounds of blogs pegged the total bill at $19,866 with such items as Wild Golden Osetra Caviar ($1,400) and 11 bottles of Krug champagne ($5,610). The widely circulated New York Post, which reported on the dinner, said Ms Arroyo “ordered several bottles of very expensive wine, pushing the dinner tab up to $20,000.”

Remonde insisted the meal that Ms Arroyo and her group had at Le Cirque was “simple” and without caviar and champagne. In a radio interview, Remonde also said it wasn’t surprising if Ms Arroyo was invited to dine at a decent restaurant. “If you invite the President to dinner in New York, (you won’t have it in) a hotdog stand, right?” he said.

Under the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials, government officials are prohibited from accepting gifts or anything of monetary value from any person in the course of their official duties or in connection with any transaction which may be affected by the functions of their office.

Presidential Decree No. 46 punishes public officials from receiving gifts on any occasion, as well as private individuals who give the gifts to officials.

The anti-graft law also penalizes receiving gifts or any material benefit from any person for whom the public officer has secured or obtained, or will secure or obtain, any government permit or license. It also bans receiving gifts in connection with any government transaction.

“Practically everybody knows that the place where they dined and wined is definitely not a place where people get a simple dinner,” Roman Catholic Archbishop Oscar Cruz said.

Had Ms Aquino wanted a simple dinner, she should have chosen a “simple restaurant,” Cruz added. “What is being paid in the restaurant is actually not the food but the ambiance there.”

For my political opinion, if the president is for the mass, she would have also showed to us that she can eat even on hotdog stands. I remembered that there was a calendar-poster that showed Mrs. Arroyo planting rice. So why not try to eat in a hotdog stands and let people know that she can be normal and be like other people in the US.

Also, if that money would be given to the less fortunate Filipinos, that large amount of money can help not just a hundred of family but thousands of it. Think of it. Let's say a typical family consumes 2 kilos of rice a day, a can of sardines and a soup of noodles. Let's just think that it's their menu for every meal a day. (It's only approximation because prices may vary depending on the location of the family.):
A kilo of rice worth P25 x 2 x a day = P25
A can of sardines worth P20 x 3 = P60
Noodles which is worth P10 x 3 = P90
The total sum of P175 a day for one family.
We can also approximate that a dollar is equivalent to P40. SO, $20,000 x P40 = P800,000.
P800,000/P175 = about 4,571 families that could have eaten our menu in that day.

That would be a generous act if not a smart political move for them.