Share this
Twitter
Digg
Del.icio.us
Reddit
Yahoo
Googlize this
Facebook
Export PDF
Print
E-mail“If the dinner was really ostentatious, then there has to be an apology, but it wasn’t ostentatious and I stand by that,” said Press Secretary Cerge Remonde, reiterating that Malacanang Palace would not be apologizing for the dinner attended by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo at the Le Cirque restaurant in New York City that racked up a $20,000 (or P960,000) bill.
“We will not glamorize this issue any further.”
Remonde added that President Arroyo, First Gentlemen Jose Miguel Arroyo and the presidential entourage had been invited to the dinner by Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez as a celebration of the President's wedding anniversary and “it would...[have been] impolite for the First Couple to turn down an invitation graciously made by a distinguished congressman.”
The Inquirer reports that Romualdez's office in Tacloban City has denied claims by Malacanang that it was the congressman who paid for the dinner.
“That is unfair. It was not [Romualdez] but his brother Daniel who footed the bill,” said Nick Esmale, Romualdez's legal and media liaison officer. Daniel Romualdez is a New York-based architect who is one of the most highly paid in his field.
Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites
