Quinata sent a mass e-mail Thursday, announcing her resignation as a member of Sen. Ray Tenorio’s staff after receiving flak for posting a picture with a supposedly funny caption that turned out to be politically insensitive.
The picture posted on her Facebook personal profile showed former Gov. Carl Gutierrez bantering with Jennifer Cruz, wife of Lt. Gov. Mike Cruz, a gubernatorial hopeful under the Republican Party.
Tenorio, Quinata’s now-former boss, is the running mate of another gubernatorial aspirant, Sen. Eddie B. Calvo.
The caption read: “Wonder what she felt when Carl said Eddie Calvo was going to beat her husband in the Republican primary.”
From an undisclosed e-mail address a message was sent to Calvo and Tenorio. It read: “Is this how you plan to mend the party after the primary? By having your staff attack the current second lady? Looks like you just lost your opponent’s support because of one immature staffer’s mistake. What a shame.”
Quinata has since removed the photo from her Facebook profile issuing a public apology in a mass e-mail.
“I acted completely of my own volition. I was not directed to display the photo on my personal account, nor did I seek any approval from my superiors to do so,” she wrote.
“I admit I had every [intention] to [incite] the emotional frenzy it has stirred and I apologize to Mrs. Cruz and the former governor for giving in to my basic human instinct to act on the hatred and wrongdoing I have been shown by others,” she added.
A former journalist, Quinata apologized “for not seeing the photo for what it really is: the captured moment of a smile and an embrace between friends. It is a representation of who we are as a people and I’m sure, it is what we all love about our island most — each other.”
