House spends P2.3 M for Noy’s last SONA

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has set aside P2.3 million for expenses in connection with today’s sixth and last State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Aquino.

“That is the budget. We do not plan to breach that,” House Secretary General Marilyn Yap said over the weekend.

Yap said the bulk of the budget would go to food for the President, senators and House members, their spouses, other bureaucrats and their spouses as well, foreign dignitaries, and other SONA guests.

According to Yap, the House expects about 2,700 guests to attend the SONA.

The House came out with a menu for the cocktail reception that would follow the SONA. There would be a “hot buffet” and a “cold buffet.”

The hot food would include black angus with soft pan rolls and caper mayonnaise, bacon-wrapped chicken rolls, chicken barbecue kebabs, eastern shrimp rolls with sweet chili sauce (spot cooking), bread sticks with quarto formaggio artichoke dip, pasta carbonara, and capellini ala puttanesca.

For the cold buffet, guests would have an assortment of cocktail sandwiches like chicken asparagus rolls, cheese pimiento and tuna pinwheels, crab and olive open-faced sandwich, and wasabi burger.

There would also be different kinds of cheese (bleu, camembert, brie, and cheddar), grapes, crackers and pate, shrimp and capsicum vinaigrette in shot glass, cream puff, chocolate éclair, fresh fruit pannacotta, and green tea and raspberry iced tea.

Yap said the House has saved on SONA expenses since other government agencies volunteered to spruce up the Batasan building, where the President would deliver his nationally televised address before a joint session of the House and the Senate.