GMA spending
in US slammed
EXPLAIN SOLONS’ EXPENSES, TOO - DRILON
BY CARLA GOMEZ

Former Senator Franklin Drilon yesterday said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo should also reveal how much was spent for her entourage at the Waldorf Astoria, one of the most expensive hotels in New York, and for the congressmen and hangers-on who joined her on her recent trip to the United States.

Drilon, who arrived in Bacolod last night for the 14th Anniversary of the Bacolod City Hall of Justice today, said those expenses are on top of two expensive meals she and her entourage reportedly had during that visit.

The American and Philippine media have reported that Arroyo and her party ate a $20,000 meal at Le Cirque in New York and spent $15,000 at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse in Washington during her recent visit to the US.

Senator Mar Roxas, who is running for president under the Liberal Party, yesterday said Senator Benigno Aquino III had been on his shortlist for vice president even before his mother Corazon Aquino died.

However, Roxas said now is not the time to discuss such matters because Aquino has just lost his mother and is still grieving.

Roxas, who was in Bacolod with fiancée, Korina Sanchez, said that, in the past weeks, he had spent with Noynoy, “I’ve just been with him as a friend ready to just talk about food, his mother, remembrances.”

BRGY. QUINTIN REMO, Moises Padilla – A huge major crack in the ground in this rebel-infested area, branching out into several zigzagged smaller ones, continues to widen and has already affected six sitios of the barangay, town officials yesterday said.

Mayor Francisco Nazareno yesterday said the main crack in the ground is now estimated at six kilometers long, and the number of affected families had reached 91 as of yesterday.

Nazareno said he is anticipating a shortage of food supplies for the affected families, composed of about 200 individuals, now staying in evacuation centers.