SC grants Gloria Arroyo furlough to vote

THE SUPREME Court has allowed detained former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo a day-long furlough so she could vote in her hometown on May 9, with specific instructions that the reelectionist Pampanga representative’s leave be spared from “fanfare or a caravan.”

In a resolution, the high court on Tuesday said Arroyo could leave the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City at 8 a.m. on Election Day to cast her vote in Lubao, Pampanga.  She was ordered to return the same day.

Arroyo, who suffers from a spinal disorder, has been held under hospital detention while on trial for plunder for allegedly masterminding the withdrawal of millions of pesos from the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office.