Ailing GMA free, after 4 years in detention

From InterAksyon (Jul 21): Ailing GMA free, after 4 years in detention

Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's walk to freedom came at early evening of July 21, a Thursday, after nearly four years in detention.

Supporters cheered and the media jockeyed for position as they waited for Arroyo's convoy at the gate of the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), but Arroyo, aboard a black SUV, exited at the side gate of the hospital. 

Arroyo, 69, has been on hospital arrest at the VMMC since October 2012 following the Sandiganbayan antigraft court's order for her arrest and detention on a plunder case involving sweepstakes funds.

She was held in a hospital suite rather than a regular jail because of a spine ailment.

On Tuesday, July 19, the Supreme Court en banc, voting 11-4, ordered her immediate release after it dismissed the P366-million plunder charge against her in connection with the alleged misuse of the intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). The high court said the evidence against Arroyo was insufficient. 

It took two days before the high court made public a copy of the decision, which was then brought to the Sandiganbayan. The latter gave the final go-ahead for her release. 

From the hospital, Arroyo motored to her home in La Vista subdivision in Quezon City to reunite with her family and friends, including some formers officials who have worked with her in her nine-year stint in Malacanang.

Her lawyer, Larry Gadon, said among her first activities would be a visit to the hospital for a check-up.

Laurence Arroyo, another lawyer of the former president, said Arroyo was "very happy and relieved that she is finally coming home."

He said Arroyo did not discuss with them her pending cases. "She just wants to go home and savor the moment," he said.

Arroyo was the second longest-serving President next to Ferdinand Marcos. Her first three years was a continuation of  the term of President Joseph Estrada, who was ousted in what was billed "EDSA 2" in January 2001. 

In 2004, she ran for a fresh six-year mandate -- her own -- and won in an elecion marred by allegations of election fraud. Months later, she would apologize to the nation over the circulation of a voice recording that captured her purportedly talking to an election official about her votes. 

After her term in 2010, she ran and won as representative of her congressional district in Pampanga.  She ran again in 2013 and 2016 and won by landslide. 

But the years that followed her exit from Malacanang in 2010 was marred by the barrage of cases, including graft and plunder, and by a debilitating spine illness that became apparent after two major surgeries.

Two years into her first term, in October 2012, she was ordered arrested and detained.  

She was still lucky, her detractors said, for being allowed detention in a hospital suite, and not a regular jail. 

But since then, her only glimpse of the outside world was through a wired fence of the hospital that stood meters away from her room.

In a statement released after the Supreme Court decision, she said, "It is my fervent hope that nobody else will suffer the persecution that had been levied on me through self-serving interpretation and implementation of the law."

Last year, noted international lawyer Amal Clooney submitted a brief before a United Nations panel, saying the government of Benigno Aquino III had violated Mrs. Arroyo's constitutional rights.
http://interaksyon.com/article/130610/ailing-gma-free-after-4-years-in-detention