Gov’t stops GMA
attempt to leave
DESPITE SUPREME COURT RULING
BY MYNARDO MACARAIG

MANILA – The Philippine government blocked ex-president Gloria Arroyo from leaving the country last night  after she dramatically turned up at Manila airport wearing a neck brace, insisting she must face graft charges.

President Benigno Aquino's administration defied a Supreme Court ruling that Arroyo should be allowed to seek medical treatment abroad immediately for what the 64-year-old has said is a life-threatening bone disease.

At the end of a tension-filled day of Philippine politics, Arroyo arrived at Manila airport in an ambulance and was escorted into the building in a wheelchair wearing a neck brace, with the events broadcast on television.

If the Negros Occidental Sanggunian approves in its regular session today the proposed Provincial Tax Ordinance No. 11, Series of 2011,   it could raise real property tax in the municipalities of the province by an average of 16 percent next year, or by an additional P100 million, Board Member Salvador Escalante, SP Committee on Finance chairman, said yesterday.

The committee of Escalante held the last public hearing for the ordinance “updating the schedule of market value of real properties for municipalities of the province of Negros Occidental and other provisions relative to real tax administration” at the Capitol in Bacolod City yesterday morning.

A 10-wheeler cargo truck and a farm tractor were burned by two unidentified suspects at about 1 a.m. yesterday in Sitio Acacia, Brgy. Tapi, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.

Supt. Calixto Mabugat, Kabankalan police chief, said damage to the partially burned cargo truck and farm tractor owned by Elma Erasmo, was placed at P300,000 by arson investigators of the Bureau of Fire and Protection.

The burning incident came two days after suspected New People’s Army rebels also set on fire the sugarcane plantation and a 10-wheeler cargo truck owned by Gerardo Titular in Brgy. Carabalan, Himamaylan City.