Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo loses voice, starts therapy

See no evil, hear no evil, say no ….

The blood pressure of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has stabilized, but she still has to undergo therapy for losing her voice, according to an ally who visited her at the hospital on Thursday.

“Except for the loss of voice, she’s OK. She’s recovering well,” Mayor Jerry Pelayo of Candaba, Pampanga province, told reporters at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City.

Earlier this week, Arroyo’s chief attending physician said the VIP patient had been advised against watching television, reading the papers and even using her phone to call or send text messages, so she wouldn’t be stressed by “the news around her.”

But Pelayo said “apparently she still has her cell phone with her. Maybe there were times that she still makes or takes calls.”

Luli Arroyo at bedside

The mayor said the former President was still wearing a neck brace when he visited her and that her daughter Luli had stayed by her mother’s side since her confinement on July 25.

Doctors operated on the 64-year-old Arroyo on Friday to correct a portion of her spine in the neck that had become misaligned, a condition they said could lead to paralysis if left untreated.

A titanium plate was attached to four levels of her spine to treat a condition called cervical spondylosis, an otherwise common age-related deterioration of the bones.

Pelayo said the only thing that worried him at this point was that Arroyo might insist on going back to work as soon as she is discharged from St. Luke’s.

Three-week rest

“I was able to talk to her surgeon, Dr. (Mario) Ver, and he said she needs a complete rest at least for three weeks. But the problem is, she might return to work sooner, knowing how much of a workaholic she is,” he said.

The hospital has not issued any medical bulletin on Arroyo’s condition for the last three days.

Arroyo faces a total of five plunder cases, the latest filed on July 26, over alleged multimillion-peso scams during her nine-year presidency, as well as revived allegations of massive fraud to ensure her and her allies’ victory in the 2004 and 2007 elections.

Her husband, lawyer Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo, also faces a Senate investigation after witnesses linked him to the anomalous sale of two secondhand helicopters passed off as brand new to the Philippine National Police in 2009.

On Wednesday, Mike Arroyo’s lawyer Inocencio Ferrer said his client had flown to Hong Kong on Sunday, purportedly to undergo a medical checkup.