Party-list group opposes house arrest for GMA

MANILA, Philippines - Party-list group Akbayan opposed yesterday mounting calls for detained former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to be put under house arrest.

“The appeal for house arrest should not even be accommodated. The facilities in Veterans are adequate for Arroyo’s needs,” Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello said, referring to Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City where the former President is detained on a plunder charge.

Bello said recent visits to Arroyo by prominent personalities, including former President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz, were apparently intended to drum up support for the Pampanga congresswoman’s transfer to her house at the affluent La Vista Subdivision in Quezon City.

He said Arroyo’s visitors might have wittingly or unwittingly contributed to “mind conditioning” for the public to accept her house arrest.

Both Estrada and Cruz were Arroyo critics. Estrada has consistently claimed that his ouster in 2001 was the handiwork of Arroyo, who was his vice president then.

Bello said anyone has the right to visit and reconcile the Pampanga congresswoman, but that they should keep it private. He particularly criticized Cruz.

“If Archbishop Cruz is reconciling and apologizing to Arroyo on a personal level, he should have done so privately minus the fanfare. The moment he gave a public statement to the media, he is already guilty of mind conditioning,” he said.

He said Akbayan, which is an administration ally, would oppose any reconciliation with Arroyo without the latter being made accountable for her alleged abuses during her nine-year administration.

“Any reconciliation divorced from the call for justice and accountability provides no just closure, it only continually rewards abuse,” he said.

He warned the people against any political alliance for the 2016 elections that includes Arroyo.

“Whether such talks are true or not, the public should be vigilant. Any political arrangement that would include Arroyo in the equation will only undo the strides for reform the people have made these past years,” Bello said.

“Any political alliance that will entail Arroyo’s exculpation rolls back the gains made by the people. It must be opposed and defeated,” he said.

Aside from the former President’s recent visitors, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, an Arroyo ally, has called for allowing her to “relax” under house arrest at her La Vista residence.

Malacañang officials have said they would leave the house arrest issue to the Sandiganbayan, where Arroyo is facing a plunder case.