WASHINGTON, D.C.: President Gloria Arroyo’s husband, Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, lashed out at his wife’s critics and his own detractors whom he accused of spreading malicious rumors, including one that he is banned from entering the United States because of alleged corruption charges against him.
Mr. Arroyo told a group of Filipino reporters that his presence here to accompany President Arroyo during her eight-day US working visit was the best proof that insinuations that he was avoiding visits to America to avoid possible arrest were the handiwork of people out to discredit the First Family.
The rumors were further fueled by his absence from two of the biggest fights of world top boxing champion Manny Pacquiao, Mr. Arroyo’s protégé.
“Our critics claim that President Arroyo is out to stay in power, but she just reiterated tonight that her term ends on June 30 next year,” he said.
Mr. Arroyo was somewhat agitated when asked to comment about rumors that he could face arrest once he stepped on American soil.
He said that that he could visit and stay in the US without having to worry “because I have no bank accounts in the United States as my critics are claiming.”
“When you look at these people, they are the ones who cannot come to America,” he added at the end of a dinner meeting organized on Wednesday night by Fil-USA, a new grassroots group of Filipino-Americans seeking to foster closer Philippine ties with the United States.
The dinner meeting was attended by some 300 Filipino-Americans who came from the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, Maryland, Virginia, New York and New Jersey and as far as California and Nevada in the West Coast.
“[Senator Panfilo] ‘Ping’ Lacson and [former President Joseph] ‘Erap’ Estrada, they are the ones who cannot come to the US,” Mr. Arroyo said. Lacson has repeatedly accused Mrs. Arroyo and her husband of corruption, the undoing of Estrada who was convicted of plunder and pardoned later by the President.
By Jun Medina
The Manila Times
Posted 07/31/2009
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