Announcement: Diarrhea in Mid-flight

Antonio C. Abaya
Today at 5:25am
Manila Standard Today
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
It was columnist Lito Banayo who first raised the question of why the chartered Philippine Air Lines Flight 001, carrying President Gloria Arroyo and her party to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru last Nov. 21 was diverted in mid-flight, six hours after leaving Manila. It was made to detour to Osaka , Japan .
The First Gentleman, Mike Arroyo, was said to have suffered “severe stomach pains and vomiting” and, although there were doctors on board, it was decided to unload him in Osaka so that he could receive emergency medical treatment in a hospital.
PGMA is said to have waited for his physicians to arrive in Osaka from Manila (in a San Miguel Corporation HS-125 executive jet) before proceeding to Lima .
Banayo quotes an unnamed “friend” who asked: “Was it a case of the presidential party being alerted by phone that someone among them was going to be picked up by authorities upon landing at Los Angeles airport for money laundering activities?
“Remember that in the wake of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, AIG and so many other Wall Street corpses, the federal anti-money laundering task force may have found the smoking gun documents about the financial capers of someone in the presidential plane.
“That would have been a terrible embarrassment, because no one else in the party aboard PAL Flight PR 001 was important enough to merit a reason to retreat and fly back except the President or her husband….”
Frank Wenceslao, president of an organization called Philippine Anti-Corruption Movement USA, has a different take:
“GMA, husband and their children are reportedly barred to enter the US by virtue of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) and the Bush administration’s ‘No Safe Haven’ policy to deny kleptocrats to enjoy the fruits of corruption.
“The Family’s last visit when the policy was specially lifted was when Ambassador Kristie Kenney thought that the MOA on Ancestral Domain would push through and the US could negotiate a bases agreement with the Bangsa Moro.
“GMA’s US visit [last October] was only allowed for a head-of-state attending UN-related conferences or meetings.
“It is out of protocol [that] Mrs. Arroyo is allowed to come to the US , but not her husband. There is a report that Atty. Arroyo’s emergency landing in Japan happened when the presidential party learned [that] his request for [a] US visa wasn’t granted, and he really needed [one] for a stopover in Los Angeles.
“Mike Arroyo might suffer what happened to Joc Joc Bolante and be detained…”
I do not know which version, if any, is accurate: Was Mr. Arroyo about to be arrested in LAX for money laundering, or was his request for a US visa denied and he was going to detained, like Joc Joc Bolante before him, for having an expired US visa? I tend to doubt that Mr. Arroyo would leave for LAX without a valid US visa.
But both columnist Banayo and crusader Wenceslao did not mention a significant fact: namely, that six hours out of Manila, in a non-stop 12-hour flight eastward towards LAX, PAL Flight 001 would have been within a triangle described by Wake Island, Midway Island and Hawaii, the first two US territories, the third a state in the American Union..
In case of a medical emergency situation—and I have no doubt that Mr. Arroyo needed emergency help—the most logical place to make a stop would have been Honolulu, about an hour and a half away from where the plane was when the decision was made to rush him to a hospital.
Turning back to Osaka suggests that the party deliberately avoided US territory—for either of the reasons suggested by Banayo and Wenceslao, or for some other reason unknown to us. Stopping at Honolulu also would not have delayed PGMA’s trip to Lima as much as the stopover in Osaka did.
Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno was quoted as saying that “Six more hours to reach LAX. There was no way we could wait that long. I think the precautions taken were warranted. It is very hard to take risks with anyone’s life.” What risks would there have been in landing in Honolulu , aside from the two given by Banayo and Wenceslao?
Why the presidential party seems to have deliberately avoided US territory should be the subject of a Senate investigation, not to determine if Mr. Arroyo really suffered from diarrhea, but to salvage what is left of our national self-respect.
Is it really true that Mr. Arroyo was about to be arrested by the FBI in LAX for money laundering activities? We have a right to know.
Is it really true that President Arroyo has been black-listed by US authorities and may set foot on US soil only....