Why Arroyo frequents Dubai

Gloria Arroyo is becoming a frequent visitor of Dubai in recent months, especially since the financial crisis in the United States hit hard her family's favorite investment firms, Lehman Brothers and Merryl Lynch. Cerge Remonde's spin is that Arroyo is on a two-day visit to Dubai to “ seek more job employment for the country’s expatriate workers.” What has become of her labor officials that taxpayers are subsidizing with billion of pesos in salaries and allowances? After fleeing Thailand's protesters, Malacañang said Arroyo went to Dubai accompanied by “ Press Secretary Cerge Remonde, Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Favila, Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes, among other Cabinet members, and some congressmen.” How many are “some congressmen” Malacañang didn't say. As usual, they waste precious taxpayers’ money and hide it from the people. Remonde's press release said Arroyo “was last here (Dubai) on Jan. 27-28, 2008.” False. Arroyo was in Dubai Jan. 31, 2009, a little over two months ago, en route to Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. There could have been other stopovers in Dubai on her way to other parts of the Middle East. Arroyo's frequent visits to Dubai, the financial hub in the Middle East and South Asia, had been noticed by some people in the financial sector. It's not just mere coincidence, and one investment consultant I talked with said that these visits are happening after unconfirmed reports that the Arroyo's lost some $500 million in investments made with Lehman Brothers and Merryl Lynch, which made Arroyo go back and forth to the U.S at the slightest excuse following the financial crisis last year. (Her stalking President Obama is another matter.) The Dubai visits are also happening following the story about the turning back of the chartered Philippine Airlines, which was to bring Arroyo and her party to Peru for the leaders' meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation via San Francisco, and landing in Osaka, Japan last November 2008. It was written about that while up in the air, a U.S embassy official alerted a justice undersecretary that an investigation being conducted on the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the other financial firms in the U.S showed some accounts owned by Mike Arroyo. The rumor was that Arroyo would be invited for questioning. That's the reason the plane had to turn back and had Arroyo disembark before it entered the U.S. Malacañang's official explanation was diarrhea. Arroyo's lawyer, Ruy Rondain, denied the rumors. But what's unusual is Mike Arroyo's non-attendance of Manny Pacquiao's fights in the U.S. when before he was a fixture in the audience. A foreign affairs source called our attention to the something strange in the visits of Arroyo to Davos last February when she made a brief stopover in Dubai. From Switzerland, she proceeded to Bahrain and Milan. Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo was not part of the official party. Romulo, the source said, made a last minute application to the WEF. From Davos, Romulo came home and was not with Arroyo in her meetings in Bahrain and Milan. Romulo was back here in the Philippines when he was informed that Arroyo had decided to go to Washington D.C to try (but failed) to have a picture taken with Obama in national prayer breakfast. What were those meetings with foreign officials or private persons that didn't need the foreign secretary's presence? Could it have something to do with personal finances? A source called our attention to the fact that presidential flights get special treatment in immigration and customs. It's the easiest way to bring out something you would like to be out -of- reach by persons who might be in power just in case her plans of clinging to power beyond 2010 doesn't materialize. That would be Plan B, C or D because it looks like the Arroyos do not have the numbers for Plan A, that is Charter change, despite the House of Representatives traditionally theirs in the past eight years. Also despite Mikey Arroyo, son of Gloria and Mike, personally gathering the signatures even enlisting the help of Joe de Venecia, whom they pushed out of the Speaker's chair. A source in the office of Speaker Prospero Nograles said Danding Cojuangco's Nationalist People's Coalition, the Liberal Party and the Nacionalista Party are not signing in the resolution of Camarines Sur Rep Luis Villafuerte calling for a constitutional assembly to amend the Constitution even without the participation of the Senate. The NPC, LP and NP are part of Arroyo's grand alliance in the Lower House. Their non-cooperation is a sign of Gloria Arroyo's lame duck status. It gives Arroyo a glimpse of how they would regard her once she is out of power. Time to stash the loot in a safer location.