Packed breakfast meal seen as culprit in Imelda Marcos party food poisoning

The packed breakfast meal that consisted of chicken adobo and egg served to guests of former First Lady Imelda Marcos could have cause the food poisoning at her birthday party in Pasig.

This was the initial findings of the Pasig City Health Office, Bryant Wong of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office said in an interview on GMA News TV's QRT on Wednesday.

"Packed lunch daw po ang nakaapekto sa mga tao, sa mga pasyente natin ayon sa city health office... Ang source ng information ay galing sa ating city health officer and sanitary sector. Iyan ang una nilang napuna, na breakafast po ang nakaapekto sa suspected food poisoning... which is adobo na may chicken itlog," he said.

Wong said the bottled water handed out to the guests are also being checked by the Food and Drug Administration.

Wong said the organizer of the event already pledged to shoulder all the hospital expenses of the victims.

Wong clarified that the packed meals handed out earlier in the morning outside the venue were more probably the culprit than the lunch buffet served inside the Ynares Sports Arena.

"Kaya nag-react [ang mga victims] mga bandang 10 to 11 a.m. kasi kinain nila iyon mga three to four hours earlier," he said.

On the observation that authorities allowed the birthday program to go on despite the food poisoning incident, Wong said they did it on purpose to prevent a commotion.

"Kapag in-announce namin yung nangayri baka mag-cause ng panic at magkaron ng stampede kaya dahan-dahan namin inannounce iyon at yung nakakain ng itlog, ng breakfast pinapila namin sa isang area at dahan-dahan silang pinalabas," Wong said. — MDM, GMA News