Auntie Charo's Soapbox

The following was reported in today's Marianas Variety's on-line issue reported by By Mar-Vic Cagurangan
Variety News Staff

"TWELVE Guam mayors, accompanied by an entourage of 48 residents, will be in Manila next month for a mayors’ conference and a field trip to hospitals and agricultural facilities in the Philippines.
Agana Heights Mayor Paul McDonald, who heads the delegation, said the conference, to be held in Shangri-La Hotel from Aug. 6 to 10, seeks to establish a partnership between Guam and Philippine mayors.
“We will be creating the Guam Philippines Mayors League. Its objectives include the exchange of ideas and information beneficial to our people at the grassroots level,” McDonald told Variety.
He said the conference will tackle education and production of items made of indigenous materials such as bamboo, among others.
The Philippine and Guam mayors, he added, are also hoping to establish a system that will facilitate cooperative efforts in times of disasters. Once the Guam and Philippine mayors organization is formed, McDonald said, the group will ask the United Nations to provide them with an “advanced warning system” which is being used during disaster relief operations.
While the mayors are attending the conference, McDonald said the Guam residents traveling with them will tour the medical facilities to see the medical services available in Manila.
“A lot of people here are being referred to medical facilities in the Philippines and Guam residents prefer to go there because medical services are more affordable than Hawaii and California, and their medical technology is as advanced as the ones in the U.S.,” said McDonald, president of the Mayors Council of Guam.
He said the tour group will also visit a hogs farm and an aquaculture facility, as well as the University of the Philippines to acquire more information about aquaculture farming.
“We have a whole variety of people traveling with us. They are working people interested in starting a business here. They are hoping to be able to apply here whatever they would learn from the trip,” McDonald said, adding that each member of the whole delegation is spending personal funds for the trip.
“We got a good deal from two airlines and travel companies that allow us to take this trip,” the mayor said."
The question is whether or not the government will pay out any funds for this trip.......as I write this, the mayor of Agana Hts. is speaking with Travis Coffman, talk show host of the Big Show and telling him that if there is finding that there's reason that mayor's can use the venue to use the trip as a 'hands on' that they may use government funds for the trip, thereby making the trip a junket rather than paying for the 'field trip' out of their pockets which he he said they were paying for early on.
Personally, I see no problem with partying with fellow mayors in the PI....as long as doing same doesn't come out of public funds in the end.....So Travis, you forgot to ask.......will these mayors close their offices while they're off partying?