Mike Arroyo slips out to HK for medical checkup
The Department of Justice had not yet even drafted a watch list order against Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo when he left for Hong Kong on Sunday for a medical checkup. He promised to come back as soon as his doctors give him the green light, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
His flight came two days before two witnesses testified at the Senate that Arroyo owned two used helicopters sold to the Philippine National Police in 2009 as brand new.
The Senate blue ribbon committee said it would invite Arroyo to its investigation of the sale because his name was mentioned several times by witnesses.
“Let’s presume he (Arroyo) wants to cooperate and clarify the matter. But if he leaves, that would be a sign that he’s hiding something,” Sen. Teofisto Guingona III, the chair of the blue ribbon committee, said on Tuesday.
“If he knows there’s an investigation and flies (to another country), that adds to the probability that he’s guilty,” Guingona added.
Too late the watch list
If Arroyo fails to return to the country soon, placing him on a watch list would be for naught.
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima on Wednesday directed members of her department’s legal staff to make a draft of a watch list order that she might issue against Arroyo.
De Lima said she also ordered Chief State Counsel Ricardo Paras to coordinate with the Senate to verify if the senators had indeed asked the Department of Justice to place Arroyo on the immigration bureau’s watch list.
“Once that is verified, then I’m inclined to issue a watch list order (against Arroyo),” the justice secretary told reporters.
Ready to answer
Arroyo’s lawyer, Inocencio Ferrer, said his client’s checkup in Hong Kong would be completed by Aug. 4.
“As soon as a medical clearance is given, he will return to the Philippines to address the malicious issues raised against him,” Ferrer said in a statement.
The lawyer assured the public that Mr. Arroyo was “ready to answer the false and baseless allegations hurled against him by people who want him dragged in the controversy they themselves created.”
In a text message, Ferrer said Arroyo left on Sunday at 6 p.m.
The lawyer said that Arroyo was originally set to visit his doctors in Hong Kong for his “long overdue medical checkup” last week, but that he had to stay by the side of his wife, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who underwent surgery at St. Luke’s Medical Center at Fort Bonifacio Global City in Taguig City on July 29.
Ferrer said that after the physicians of the former President declared her stable following a cervical spine surgery, Mike Arroyo immediately flew to Hong Kong to meet his physicians, John Kwok and C.P. Lau.
Heart ailment
The lawyer noted that Arroyo had been diagnosed with dissecting aortic aneurysm which he described as a life-threatening heart ailment that forced him to undergo a 10-hour open heart surgery in 2007.
Ferrer said Arroyo had been informed that only 5 percent of patients survive this major operation and “that half of these survivors die within five years after the operation unless they take extra care of their health.”
Sighted in Kowloon
Arroyo was sighted early afternoon Wednesday exiting the elevator of a hotel in Hong Kong’s busy Kowloon District.
The sighting was reported by a private citizen, who wants to remain anonymous.
The source, a Filipino male tourist, noted that Arroyo was alone when they rode the elevator together at the Marco Polo Gateway right in the heart of the Tsim Sha Tsui shopping district.
Arroyo is known to stay in this hotel, an establishment popular with Filipinos on holiday, when he is in the Chinese special administrative region.
In summer last year, Arroyo was seen in the hotel with his wife, then a newly elected Pampanga representative, and their two sons Juan Miguel and Diosdado III, who are both members of the House of Representatives.
Picture taking
The former President created quite a stir at the hotel lobby then when she was recognized by Filipino guests who insisted on having their pictures taken with her.
Usually, the former first gentleman travels to Hong Kong with a security aide in barong who carries an attaché case.
Arroyo usually travels business class via Philippine Airlines. With a report from Marlon Ramos
