MANILA – President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo cancelled at the last-minute her plan to fly to the United States next week to address a Leaders Meeting of the UN General Assembly, a senior Malacanang official announced.
However, Press Secretary Cerge Remonde said the President would proceed with her scheduled visit, first to London for a speaking engagement and later to Saudi Arabia for a three-day state visit.
Remonde gave no reason for the cancellation of the US visit which would have been the President’s 84th foreign trip since she took over Malacanang in 2001 following the ouster by the Edsa People Power 11 revolution of then president Joseph Estrada in 2001.
But lately, the President has been severely criticized for her globe-trotting tendency at the expense of the Filipino taxpayers, the latest of which was also to the US for a working visit, highlighted by her meeting with President Barack Obama at the White House on July 30.
While in the US, however, US media reported that President Arroyo and her large entourage of mostly members of the House of Representatives feasted on steak and seafood in two posh restaurants in Washington DC and New York.
The tab for both dinners totaled $35,000 or equivalent to more than 1.4 million Philippine pesos, which reportedly was picked up by Congressman Ferdinand Martin Romualdez of Leyte province in the Visayas and Congressman Danilo Suarez of Quezon province in Southern Luzon.
Romualdez is the nephew of former first lady Imelda Marcos, who has a pending case in the lower court in Metro Manila for allegedly withdrawing about $3 million from a bank, which is suspected to be part of the $10 billion “loot†of the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos, his family and their cronies.
On the other hand, Suarez admitted that he is applying for a $20 million loan from the state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines to build an “overpriced†power plant in Quezon owned by his family.
With the scrapping of the US visit, meanwhile, Malacanang said the President would revert to her original schedule in which she is to leave for London on September 17 to address an international business forum organized by the UK-based “Economist†magazine.
Malacanang cited the importance of the President in addressing the conference which, organizers said, is to be attended by British and foreign government officials as well as international business executives regarding the global economic slowdown.
From London, President Arroyo is to fly to Saudi Arabia for a three-day state visit starting on September 17 and will be back in Manila on September 24.
Based on the official countdown, the London and Saudi Arabia visits would be the 84th and 85th foreign trips of the peripatetic President.
Malacanang, however, refused to release additional details on the London and Saudi Arabia visits, saying this was up to the Department of Foreign Affairs which was earlier authorized as the sole government agency to do so on the President’s foreign trips.
No explanation was given but it was believed to have been caused by the expose on the expensive dinners she and her large entourage would indulge in these trips.
As a result, the foreign office has yet to announce whether, as before, President Arroyo would again be accompanied by a large entourage of “hangers-on†from the House of Representatives in her visit to London and Saudi Arabia.
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