Manila - A failed effort by a spokesman to cover up the real
reasons behind last week's hospitalization of Philippine President
Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has further eroded her credibility.
The new trouble for the beleaguered 62-year-old started when her
office said she would go on self-quarantine in a posh hospital in
metropolitan Manila's Las Pinas City upon arrival home from a
three-nation trip early last week.
According to a press release by the presidential office, Arroyo
was setting an example of social responsibility amid the threat of
swine flu, which has afflicted more than 1,000 people in the
Philippines.
But information slipped out to the media that Arroyo actually had
her leaking breast implants repaired during her confinement, forcing
the president's spin doctors to go on overdrive.
'The issue is not that [Arroyo] had a breast implant but that they
have to lie about such a simple matter,' columnist Neal Cruz lamented
in the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Cruz said the incident showed that 'telling lies is common
practice' in Arroyo's administration, in which a number of her
spokespeople and aides have been forced in the past to give
half-truths to the public to protect her and her family from scandals.
'The trouble with telling lies [is] you are caught in the web of
your own lies,' he said.
Journalist Jarius Bondoc stirred the current controversy when he
questioned the government's 'self-quarantine' spin on Arroyo's
hospitalization.
Bondoc noted that after arriving from her foreign trip, Arroyo
partied all night Tuesday at the wedding anniversary of a trusted
cabinet man with dozens of people before she checked in at the
hospital Wednesday.
He said that based on a tip by an informant at the hospital, the
real reason for Arroyo's hospitalization was to have her leaking
breast implants repaired.
'She had mammoplastic repair of her leaking breast implants done
in the 1980s, excision of inguinal [groin] cyst and laser depilation
of unwanted hair in that area and the armpits,' he wrote in his
column in the Philippine Star newspaper.
Presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde bristled at reporters when
asked about Bondoc's expose. He dismissed it as nonsensical, noting
that Arroyo is not an actress fixated with such cosmetic surgery.
'Just look if the president had a breast implant,' he said. 'Its
obvious if women have had breast implants. The sexy actresses with
boobs, they're the ones who underwent breast implants. We can't say
the same thing of the president.'
But as more details about her breast implants leaked to the media,
Remonde changed his tune and admitted Arroyo had 'something' placed
in her breast in the 1980s.
'An abscess was removed [from her breast], and something was put
in its place,' he said while stressing that during her most recent
hospitalization, Arroyo did not get her old implants replaced.
Remonde also insisted that Arroyo's main reason for checking in at
the Asian Hospital was for self-quarantine in accordance with the
swine-flu advisory by the Department of Health.
He added that while undergoing self-quarantine, Arroyo took the
opportunity to undergo biopsies for lumps in her breast and groin.
'She was given a clean bill of health because the results of the
biopsies done on her breast and her groin were all negative,' he said.
Remonde's failed cover-up was reminiscent of what happened in 2005
when then-press secretary Ignacio Bunye dismissed as part of a
destabilization plot the release to the public of wiretapped
conversations between Arroyo and a senior elections commissioner
allegedly about rigging the 2004 presidential vote.
Bunye said the conversations did not happen and even alleged that
the leaked recording was fabricated.
But as more details about the alleged conversations became
available to the media, Arroyo addressed the nation on national
television and apologized for talking to the elections commissioner
while votes were still being counted.
She, however, never admitted that she connived to cheat in the
2004 elections.
Another incident that showed Arroyo's double talk was when she
told the public in 2003 that she would not seek election in 2004,
only to take it back months later when she filed her candidacy.
She was also less candid about her involvement in a scrapped
329-million-dollar broadband deal between the Chinese firm ZTE and
the government.
At first, Arroyo belittled allegations that she and her husband
benefited from the ZTE deal as mere politicking on the part of the
opposition. But the president was forced to scrap the deal as
witnesses came out to link her and her husband to multimillion-dollar
kickbacks from the agreement.
Critics warned that the boob job coverup was expected to only
worsen the public's perception of Arroyo, considered the most
distrusted leader the country ever has, according to public opinion
surveys.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel said that while the issue should have
been kept private, Arroyo's aides mishandled the controversy, making
a mountain out of a mole hill.
'We have fake elections, we have a fake president, now we have
fake boobs,' he said. 'It's fake all over.'
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