GMA serving home-cooked food on 65th birthday today

MANILA, Philippines - Former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be serving home-cooked food to her family and friends in her 65th birthday celebration today at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), her husband said yesterday.

Former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo said his wife did not send any invites for her birthday but their children – Ang Galing party-list Rep. Juan Miguel Arroyo, Camarines Sur Rep. Diosdado Arroyo, Ma. Evangeline Arroyo-Bernas – and their grandchildren would be there the whole day.

Also expected to arrive are some relatives and close friends as well as some of her constituents, he said.

“The food will come from our home in La Vista, we can’t cook in the hospital,” Mr. Arroyo said. “So we’ll serve food to whoever arrives there.”

He said the dining place would be the large room adjacent to her hospital suite.

Mrs. Arroyo has been under detention at the VMMC since November on charges of electoral sabotage. She has yet to fully recover from a degenerative disease that is affecting her spine.

Mr. Arroyo said the family would attend the regular Mass at the VMMC.

He said he shared the Lenten message and the birthday wish of his wife that the nation be healed of its wounds and Filipinos to be united.

The former leader also prayed that the country be protected from calamities.

“As for me, I hope and pray that she would be freed because all these charges are baseless,” he said.

“To our countrymen, let us pray for forgiveness this Lenten season and continue to be inspired by the love bestowed on us by Jesus and the sacrifice He made to redeem our sins,” Mrs. Arroyo said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Sana po ay mawala na ang kaguluhan at kalungkutang likha ng hindi pagkakaisa (I wish that the turmoil and sadness caused by disunity would end),” she said.

She said it was her “fervent hope that we will be truly united in the pursuit of long lasting happiness and prosperity.”

Jinggoy to GMA: Be strong

As this developed, Senate President Pro-Tempore Jose Jinggoy Estrada advised the former leader to be strong while in jail.

Estrada told The STAR that he understands how Arroyo feels being in jail because he and his father, former President Joseph Estrada, were also subjected by the Arroyo administration to sufferings.

“I hope she will be strong because I know how difficult it is to be in jail like the sufferings that she (Arroyo) had caused us before,” Estrada said when asked about his birthday message to Arroyo.

Vice President Jejomar Binay also wished Arroyo a happy birthday.

For his Lenten message, Binay asked every Filipino to pray that the Philippines be spared from the tragedies that have been hitting the country.

– With Jose Rodel Clapano