Thus ate La Gloria

It is a truth universally acknowledged, but furtively practiced, that a congressman in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wine.

And so Rep. Martin Romualdez invited the gang of GMA to a simple late night dinner. News reports alleged they simply ordered simple dishes: five servings of wild golden osetra caviar ($1,400), 11 bottles of Krug champagne ($5,610), and 25 orders each of the Chef’s Seasonal Menu and Tasting Menu (totaling $1,450 and $4,500 respectively), along with 17 other items.

If this dinner were simple, I wonder what would they order should they go non-simple.

When supper was ended, Rep. Romualdez simply paid the bill, which simply amounted to $20,000. The Simple Dinner would have ended happily ever after had such curious descendants of Pandora as Richard Johnson, of the New Yok Post, been exterminated long time ago.

Suddenly The Simple Dinner became the talk of the town. People began calling them names. But GMA apologists were quick to insist that 'twas a simple dinner.

“What we had in New York," Remonde clarified, "was a simple, late night dinner because it was already late at night when we arrived there from Washington DC and, of course, we were all hungry.”

Of course, it was a late night dinner. How else do you call a dinner done late at night? But a simple late night dinner? Nonsense.

The public outrage continues, so Atty. Romulo Macalintal came to the rescue. But he's barking up the wrong tree.

"You in media companies," Macalintal said in Filipino, "isn't it also a moral issue if you know it's wrong, if you know it's a form of indirect campaigning, if you already know it is immoral, then why advertise? Why accept the advertisement? Doesn't that also make you immoral?"

Atty. Macalintal's defense of GMA et al's simple dinner worth almost a million, is a classic specimen of argumentum ad hominem. This, according to my cerebral Philosophy professor, Sir Y, is a kind of argument that questions the personality of the accuser rather than the merit of the accusation itself.

It is so basic a principle that even my classmate who got 3.5 in our Philo 1 class know it. How come Macalintal forgot it?

Lawyer pa nam si Macalintal. Di ba dapat matagal na itong naikintal sa kaniya?