The plan: Infuriate everyone to death.
A Plaza resident we do like: Eloise.
My fabulous friend Stella can’t even relax by watching the Travel Channel. While viewing a feature on the most expensive hotel suites on earth, she remembered someone who stayed at the $15,000-a-night presidential suite of the Plaza Hotel in New York last year. It’s not darling Eloise, it’s…your favorite diner!
Now I know what the plan is. The plan is to give everyone a coronary when they see the bills.
As to whether we are overreacting to the presidential expenditures, all I can say is:
P.S. Here’s an idea. Let’s judge our leaders by the standards of personal behavior set by President Cory Aquino.
Hahaha! Everyone will fail.
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
August 14th, 2009 at 09:05
OMG! How crass. How shameless. On the other hand, I live in a 2-bedroom apartment, which rents for $1400 a month or P67,000, and that’s just the median price in our area, which is not even New York or San Francisco. If you want to buy a house here, be prepared to spend at least $500,000 for a decent 3-bedroom house. Or about 24M pesos.
My point is there’s the obvious tendency of Filipinos to convert dollars to pesos, and then react negatively to the peso amount. I’m not saying the presidential suite of the Plaza Hotel is cheap. But lost in the entire discussion is the context of where the money was spent, when the money was spent, and how many people was the money spent for. What may seem like an expensive amount may be deemed reasonable under different circumstances. For example, dinners in the US are generally more expensive than lunch even if you’re eating the same food. It also costs more to watch a movie in the afternoon or at night than to watch the same movie in the morning.
According to the Travel Channel website (http://tinyurl.com/l6mho9), the 7,800-square-foot presidential suite of the Plaza Hotel has two living rooms, six bedrooms, and seven bathrooms. I don’t think the president had the room all to herself in the same way that the president did not eat all of the food and drank all of the wine that reportedly cost $20,000. So the $15,000/night may have been spent for 6 to 12 people, which may be a reasonable amount given all the other amenities included in the suite. In my opinion, a president deserves to stay in the presidential suite, especially for somebody who is going to welcome heads of state and other guests at the hotel.
While it’s true that there are cheaper rooms at other hotels, albeit may be unsuitable for a president, there are also others that are more expensive. Perhaps, the problem was that they may have made the mistake of booking late, and got stuck with the more expensive suites because all the other heads of state had already taken the cheaper ones (note that PGMA went there for the UN General Assembly). Or maybe one of her filthy rich politician friends paid for it. Then, the question becomes: in exchange for what presidential favors?
August 14th, 2009 at 09:07
It’s a communist plot! She spends, we get mad, and it’s all someone else’s fault!
August 14th, 2009 at 17:52
this is why we loved/love cory. precisely why.
August 15th, 2009 at 10:30
My mom used to be in charge of the expenses of the Office of the President (she used to work in Department of Budget and Management, already retired 3 years ago), and she used to tell us that Cory had the least allocated budget, compared to all her successors, including the current government of the tiny one.
The tiny one clearly has an insatiable spending frenzy. Only that the money she’s using is from the quaint Juan de la Cruz’s plastic piggy bank. I’m pretty sure that the piggy bank has a mammoth mole on its face.
August 15th, 2009 at 12:23
@Radiohead: I am in Boston (surely one of the more expensive cities in the US), and these prices are not even remotely reasonable. You don’t need to convert to Php to be shocked.
as to some other points you raised: I don’t think La Presidentita would let up to 10 other guests sleep inside her suite (assuming she’s with FG) ?? Surely the other members of her entourage stayed in other rooms. And using 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms just to receive guests? Really, that much?? As for it being last minute, it’s not as if the UN can suddenly call for a meeting, right? This would have been well know years in advance. No – it all boils down to how this woman feels she is entitled to all these, without regard for the people. As far as this woman is concerned, words fail me.
August 16th, 2009 at 03:00
@Herbert
Your guess is just as good as mine. Even presidents — no matter how “evil” they are portrayed to be — deserve the benefit of the doubt. Until ALL the facts are in, and are discussed and debated rationally, everything else is mere speculation, conjecture, or uninformed conclusion. Of course, for the mob who’s already made up their minds and itching to crucify a person, no explanation will ever be enough.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:30
@ Herbert
How in the world will all the facts come out with regard to this preposterously overpriced dinner among other things if Malacañang keeps evading the issue and goes on fingerpointing to the media as the immoral one? Is this the best defense they can think of rather than providing answers to all the questions truthfully? Haven’t they tried to evade the issue of impeachement twice by the sheer number of pro-GMA congressmen who shamelessly succeeded in preventing GMA to answer the corruption charges against her. Now tell me Mr. Herbert, who do you think instigated all these efforts to conceal the facts and led the people to lose trust in the present government? Don’t be so naive.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:36
@Herbert
I’m so sorry. My comment is not for you. I’m on your side. It’s solely for radiohead.