Mrs. Arroyo's Dubai Trips

For the nth time this year, Mrs. Arroyo went to Dubai, austensibly to "look for jobs for displaced Filipino workers". How interesting.

Since early December 2008, Dubai already closed shop for overseas workers. Even if you ask recruitment and placement agencies, they'll tell you that as early as December, many Dubai-based firms already stopped or has decreased their recruitment needs, obviously due to the global financial crisis. Like Singapore, which positioned itself as an investment hub, Dubai is now reeling from the worst financial crisis the world has ever seen. Most of the real estate construction works have now either been abandoned for "safer times" or temporarily stopped due to lack of funds. That's why global investors are shifting focus, from traditional investment sites to non-traditional ones such as countries in Asia, like Vietnam and surprisingly, the Philippines.

So, its but logical for Mrs. Arroyo and her cabal to actually just stay here in the Philippines and think of ways on how to enhance the investment climate. The flow of global funds is now redirected to areas where there is less risks; that explains why Moody's continue to maintain a positive outlook for the Philippines.

Knowing this, since this is based on government research, why did Mrs. Arroyo suddenly and hurriedly went to Dubai last Black Friday? Is it because, as one of my financial sources say, she's intending to invest in a 6-star rated luxury hotel in that city? Or she wants to check on the funds invested by the Hongkong-based consultancy firm in two of the banks based in Dubai, ensuring that those funds are still intact? Or, as one political pundit opined (which i don't share because i haven't really checked on it and besides, it is not in the personality of Mrs. Arroyo nor her husband to use their own personal funds just to finance a purely political exercise), she withdrew a huge sum of money to finance the cha-cha gravy train?

Or, yet again, Mrs. Arroyo met with her friend, ousted Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shiniwatra who is now exiled in that city, to lend moral support or discuss investment opportunities?

Anyway, these two banks, global brand names in banking, suffered huge losses due to the Lehman brothers scam.

Mrs. Arroyo might know of something very serious that we mere mortals are not privy with. Maybe she wants to be tutored by Thaksin on the fine art of foreign investment, siphoning off billions of dollars worth of personal funds, without being detected by the Anti-Money Laundering Council?

Or, maybe, Mrs. Arroyo is indeed, planning out her retirement and wants to spend it not just in Portugal where they purchased a very nice villa, but also in that centerpiece of fine architecture dubbed " The World"---a six-star rated hotel with prime residential villas.