The Filipinos Are Worth Dining For

The nerve of this woman, this Gloria!

And the nerve of those who keep on defending her and her expensive meals abroad.

But seriously, sometimes I kick myself for expecting her to be more than what she can deliver. I should know better. This woman will not behave. She will continue to out-do herself even more. There seems to be no limit to the preposterous, outrageous or simply nasty things she can afford to inflict on us. It is almost as if it is her natural gift to give pain.

She made mockery of the arts before she left for the US, when she had the gall to appoint Carlo, Pitoy and the former Ninoy activist, Cecile to join the pantheons of national artists in violation of the process of vetting for nominees.

Around the same time, she attempted to make a mockery of the Judiciary by trying to undermine the work of the Judicial and Bar Council.

And when she was in the US, finally realizing her dream of meeting Barack Obama who rewarded her school girl excitement with an appointment of being the guardian of US interests in the ASEAN, she made mockery of decency when she partook of an expensive meal not only once, but four times, at a time when people are suffering from an economic crisis (never mind her proclamations that the Filipinos are doing a lot better when others are encountering the worst) and are in the midst of mourning for the death of Cory.

It is not enough that Gloria corrupted the political memory of Ninoy by transforming one of his supporters, Cecile Alvarez, into a caricature of her old political activism to now embrace a Marcosian politics reborn in the person of her new patroness in Malacanang. Gloria had to figuratively spit on the bereavement of our collective loss of Ninoy's wife Cory by dining on caviar and lobster in the same breath that she urged all of us to join her on a period of national mourning.

Let me get this straight. There is nothing wrong in splurging on expensive food, particularly if you use your own money.

But there is nothing right in wining and dining, even if it's at your own expense, while people are grieving and starving.

As I have said before, I will say it again. Ninoy thought that Filipinos are worth dying for.

Gloria, on the other hand, thinks that we are worth dining for.

What can I say, she has cannibalized our system of politics in so many ways. But fortunately for us, things appear to be not as easy as Representatives Suarez and Romualdez could produce $15,000 and $20,000 respectively.

The artist community has now gone to the Supreme Court to challenge the appointment of Carlo, Cecile and Pitoy, the same Supreme Court that was spared from Gloria's poison when the JBC stood ground and refused to submit new names to fill its vacant positions.

The press has exposed the extravagance of her meals.

And Cory, and indirectly Ninoy, had their symbolic revenge, of making it impossible for her to come home triumphantly from her trip. Even in death, Cory taught Gloria a lesson. For a woman so full of herself, being denied the spotlight is like being denied a meal in an expensive restaurant.

And of course, there is always the possibility that the toxin embedded in the lobster, the mercury hiding in the fish and seafood, and the carcinogenic effects of Angus beef may someday find their homing target in the visceral recesses of her body and those of the crowd that were with her when they feasted while we mourned.

For a woman with fatty liver, she may just be on her way there if she is not careful and keeps on dining for the Filipinos the way she did in New York and Washington.

Sometimes, when you dine for the people, you are also in fact dying for them. Only time can tell.