A merry Christmas this time for Mrs. Arroyo

Finally after three years, former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo gets to spend her Christmas together with her family right at their home residence in La Vista subdivision in Quezon City. This, after the First Division of Sandiganbayan allowed the ex-president to leave her “hospital detention” at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC), also in Quezon City.

At least for the next three days, the ailing Mrs. Arroyo is staying with husband Mike Arroyo and the rest of their family this Christmas season, albeit with a pall of gloom still lingering in their home at No. 14 Badjao Street in La Vista. It has been less than a month since her one-year-old grandson Jorge Alonzo “Jugo” Arroyo Bernas, second son of Mr. and Mrs. Arroyo’s only daughter Luli Arroyo-Bernas, died due to congenital ailment.

Since she has been detained at the VMMC from October 2012, the Sandiganbayan has denied all previous petitions filed by Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyers for furlough.

Mrs. Arroyo was arrested and detained for the plunder case in connection with the alleged misuse of P366 million in Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence funds during her term as President. But three months prior to that plunder case, she was also under hospital arrest at VMMC because of the electoral sabotage case filed against her before the Pasay regional trial court which granted her bail in July 2012.

Resigned to the fact she won’t get any leniency from the anti-graft court, Mrs. Arroyo did not file any petition for Christmas furlough last year.

Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in the 16th Congress led by her erstwhile peace negotiator secretary and now party-list representative Silvestre Bello III, took up the cudgels for her. They filed a House Resolution supporting the grant of bail and Christmas furlough for the detained leader. It was signed by several House members and included many congressmen allies of President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III. But their efforts were for naught.

The one time the Sandiganbayan granted Mrs. Arroyo’s request for furlough was to attend the wake and interment of her grandson in North Forbes Park, Makati City. The court allowed her to attend the wake for nine days from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m., and the interment on Nov. 10 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The Sandiganbayan relented in granting her furlough after a former Arroyo Cabinet official and now member of the official family of the Aquino administration, allegedly interceded. A little birdie told me this Cabinet official called up Mrs. Arroyo to condole and promised to assist her in the hour of bereavement.

So don’t be surprised if the newest House Resolution filed this year by Bello – who belongs to the minority bloc — gathered more than a hundred signatures from Mrs. Arroyo’s fellow House members supporting her Christmas furlough. Leaders of the House of Representatives, headed by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., a stalwart of President Aquino’s Liberal Party (LP), supported the decision on humanitarian grounds owing to Mrs. Arroyo’s precarious health condition.

Boosted by the House Resolution signed by congressmen who crossed party lines, lawyers of Mrs. Arroyo filed a motion last December 1 asking the anti-graft court to allow their detained client to stay in her home from Dec. 23, 2014 to Jan. 3, 2015 to celebrate Christmas and New Year with her family and relatives. 

“[Arroyo] is respectfully entreating the Honorable Court that she be granted furlough for the period alluded to above not only because of the fact that she is already at an advanced age, i.e., she will be turning 68 years in a few months, but also because of her failing state of health that continues to decline notwithstanding her confinement at the VMMC and of which the Honorable Court has been previously made aware,” the motion stated. Should she be allowed to spend the Yule holidays with her family at their home, Arroyo’s lawyers told the court she would shoulder the cost of securing her, including transport to and from VMMC and La Vista.

Instead of a 12-day furlough, the anti-graft court allowed Mrs. Arroyo to leave detention only from December 23 to 26 “in the Spirit of the Yuletide season and for compassionate and humanitarian considerations.” As approved by the court, Mrs. Arroyo left VMMC at the start of her furlough yesterday at 10 a.m. which will end at 2 p.m. of Friday, Dec. 26. While in furlough, the court also banned her from any media interview.  

The court ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP), in coordination with the Sandiganbayan sheriffs, to provide escorts and other measures to secure Mrs. Arroyo’s movements while in furlough at La Vista. Likewise, the court strictly reminded the Arroyo camp that the use of any means of communications and electronic devices such as cellphones and Internet by Mrs. Arroyo and those who will accompany her “shall be under the control and supervision of the detailed PNP security.”

The three-page ruling was penned by First Division acting chairman Associate Justice Rodolfo Ponferrada and was concurred in by members, associate justices Alex Quiroz and Rafael Lagos. Aside from the spirit of Christmas, the First Division also cited they were “inclined to grant the motion” in light of the forthcoming visit of Pope Francis, who, the court said, “is the personification of mercy and compassion.”

Incidentally, President Aquino also relented to recommendations to declare Jan. 15 to 19 as non-working holidays in Metro Manila during the four-day papal visit. “By Authority of the President,” Aquino’s executive secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. issued the proclamation to this effect.

But the Palace was much earlier beaten to the draw by former president and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada who first declared citywide four-day holiday during the Pope’s visit. Estrada is among those who supported calls for Mrs. Arroyo’s furlough petitions in the past.

When Estrada was detained also at the VMMC and later in Tanay, Rizal while undergoing plunder trial at Sandiganbayan, the court during Mrs. Arroyo’s term allowed him furlough not only during Christmas but for other family occasions and health reasons as well. Mrs. Arroyo’s court did not wait for any Pope visit in the Philippines to be merciful and compassionate.

We wish everyone a merry Christmas!