First Gentleman first

It was an exercise in futility for First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo to go out of his way to Germany and spent so much of his money, time, and effort just to refute the accusations made by Pateros Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano. This was after the Opposition solon claimed that President Arroyo’s husband and family supposedly have stashed secret deposit accounts in a bank in Germany. As Cayetano himself admitted, he has nothing to support this allegation. It’s been very clear from the start that the obvious ‘fishing expedition’ attempt by Cayetano to get the boxes of purported pieces of evidence against President Arroyo be opened up to the public after he and his fellow Opposition colleagues miserably failed again to impeach the Chief Executive.

As he has previously declared, Attorney Arroyo would likely proceed to his next course of action – to file a multi-million peso libel suit against the Pateros solon. He is now armed with this certification by the German bank that no such account numbers exist and that there is no Arroyo name in any of the bank’s records. After the "Jose Pidal" bank account scandal that earlier bedeviled the First Gentleman, he would not be that stupid to be caught with any thing of that sort again. This is the expected reaction of people who would think the worst about the First Gentleman.

After all is said and done, what did this trip achieve? A personal vindication for the much maligned First Gentleman. That’s how Attorney Arroyo wanted to fix these matters as a gentleman first. Obviously, as far as he is concerned, that’s the best way to prove his point that his accuser is nothing but a "liar" out to squeeze media mileage literally at his expense. But his stature as the husband of the President places him in a no-win situation just the same. Whatever he says or does will remain suspect.

Presidential spouses have to bear with the roles they play. In the specific case of Attorney Arroyo, he has the distinction in the country’s history as the First Gentleman ever to serve at Malacañang Palace. He can take comfort in the fact that even the most well-intentioned projects of First Ladies in the past were not spared and in fact dragged into political feuds with their respective husbands while they were also in office at the Palace.

The most recent case was that of former First Lady and now Senator Loi Ejercito who was sent by her husband, deposed President Joseph Estrada, to face the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing. This was after she and their eldest son, San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada were implicated in alleged mis-use of public funds disbursed by the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office for the purchase of ambulances that were distributed to political allies of Estrada. The mother-and-son team were subsequently cleared by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee headed at that time by Opposition Sen.Aquilino Pimentel Jr.

Unlike though, the "Jose Pidal" case of Attorney Arroyo, there was no closure on these alleged money-laundering charges against him. It was archived in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chaired by Sen. Joker Arroyo, who is, I hasten to add, not related to the President’s husband. The non-closure of this case did not help in any way the President’s husband if the good Senator thought he was trying to do a good turn for the administration.

As the President has consistently described her husband, Attorney Arroyo is not a political person or someone who knows how to roll with the punches like she does. She describes her husband’s role to a lightning rod. In fact, when she was under fire last year during the first impeachment attempt against her, she sent the First Gentleman packing out of the Palace and banished him to stay in their San Francisco family residence in California just to appease her most bitter critics and political adversaries. Attorney Arroyo had no choice but to comply with his beloved wife’s wishes and sulked in the US for quite a while last year.

After the first impeachment case against the President was successfully "killed" by Arroyo allies in Congress, the First Gentleman quietly slipped back to the country to fulfill his commitments to Filipino athletes as "chef de mission" of the Philippines for the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games. Playing to the hilt his godfather role to the Pinoy athletes, the country regained our glorious place in this regional sports meet.

Unfortunately, the First Gentleman who had to drop everything last year to help bolster his wife’s political fortunes had also abandoned his favorite charity projects, including free cataract surgery for indigent patients as well as his "Ngi-bu" (bungi or toothless), a dental project that involved giving of free set of denture to lowly paid government employees like policemen, soldiers, Metro aides and other poor folks. And his support to these pro-poor medical and dental missions have been most felt and sorely missed by the beneficiaries of these projects.

Two weeks have passed and up to now, there is no clear written order to the on-going transfer of the Malacañang Clinic in San Rafael St. in San Miguel to the Presidential Security Group (PSG) Hospital in Nagtahan, Sta.Mesa. The last information we got came from the First Gentleman who sought to reassure us that the transfer would actually upgrade the present 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. services of the Clinic into a 24-hour service at the PSG Hospital. Well and good, if that is the case. But this still does not answer the question of accessibility to the public of this medical institution once transplanted to a secured military headquarters of the PSG. And what does the Palace plan to do with the decades-old building and premises previously occupied by Malacañang Clinic?

Malacañang Clinic director, Dr.Rolando Deduyo remembered that sometime in 2001, there was an offer from the Finland government to extend a grant or a soft loan to bankroll the renovation of the Malacañang Clinic and make it also an emergency hospital. Through the Finnish grant, the First Gentleman was toying then the idea to convert the clinic into a 24-hour hospital that can provide emergency treatment to needy patients and once the condition of the patient is stabilized, the person can then be brought to the big hospital. After several inspection and assessment visits of the clinic by Finnish officials, Dr. Deduyo recalled nothing has been heard about the project.

I hope the First Gentleman would find time to revive this proposal with concerned Finnish government officials. President Arroyo is slated this Sept.7 to go to Helsinki, Finland to join her peers in the 6th Asia-Europe Leaders’ Summit Meeting (ASEM). This is one trip the First Gentleman ought to join for the sake of the poor who would benefit from this project once it’s finished. No pun intended.

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