Once a matter of life and death for which she asked the Supreme Court to allow her to travel abroad despite the Department of Justice watch list order, the health of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is now “improving.”
From “deteriorating” to “improving” in less than 6 days; how unfortunate that the public did not have the opportunity to know how it happened. Doctors at the St. Luke’s Medical Center who were summoned by the Pasay City Regional Trial Court to shed light on Arroyo’s health status were no longer pressed for details after lawyers told Judge Jesus Mupas her health is improving.
The diagnosis courtesy of her lawyers came on the heels of a declaration by one of Arroyo’s physicians at the St. Luke’s Medical Center. Dr. Mario Ver told the Pasay City RTC last week that GMA is not only “medically fit,” but could also be treated for her bone disease as an outpatient. This turn of events forecloses the hospital as sanctuary for those with legal woes.
Even before Dr. Ver went to court to declare that Arroyo is recovering well despite the noisy assertion of her lawyers to the contrary, people had been receiving reports that GMA’s condition does not conjure her kicking the bucket. A friend told me that her son who works in St. Luke’s said that hospital staff who would go to her suite to check on her condition told him they saw GMA not wearing the neck brace. In social networking site discussions, the hot topic is about how the former president freely moved and lowered her head and neck upon alighting from the van that carried her from the hospital to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Nov. 15.
Dr. Ver’s declaration merely demonstrates that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima was right in placing Arroyo under the department’s WLO. Conversely, the medical expert’s opinion underlined the Supreme Court’s bias when it issued a Temporary Restraining Order.
Developments now set the stage for jailing the former president on charges of electoral fraud, a scenario that her camp is trying to avert. Her lawyers are asking the court to place her under house arrest because according to them, she is no ordinary person. I’m not sure if they’re thinking clearly because this line of reasoning merely recalls the legitimacy issues which hounded Arroyo after her 2004 election. I heard people say that invoking special treatment for such a president would be adding insult to injury.
The Arroyo camp is bent on using the case of former President Joseph “Erap” Estrada in convincing the Pasay Court to place GMA under house arrest. Lawyer Raul Lambino recalls that after the Sandiganbayan charged, arrested and jailed Estrada for plunder in April 2005 the anti-graft court had him committed briefly at the Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center in Quezon city. Later on he was transferred to a military camp in Tanay, Rizal, and subsequently to his rest house in Tanay, where he stayed for six years while his case was on trial.
It’s well that Lambino retraced these events because then and now, there was a lot of outcry against giving special treatment to a former president accused of a capital offense.
Despite the noise created by Erap supporters then, the anti-graft court was focused on jailing him at the Quezon City jail, the spacious air-conditioned room inside the PNP Special Action Forces in Silang, Cavite, the ordinary jail inside Camp Crame or the prison cell inside Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig. Security issues had become a factor, so the court had Erap placed under hospital arrest eventually transferring him to his rest house in Tanay, Rizal.
There is no quarrel that even if she is facing a grave offense called electoral sabotage, GMA should be treated with dignity and respect. However, the court cannot grant her petition to be placed under house arrest without violating the equal protection clause of the Constitution. That is why the call of militant groups to jail GMA first before hearing out her petition for house arrest resonates among the people.
GMA cannot be placed in an ordinary jail in the company of recidivists. The public sentiment that seems to favor the former President, on the other hand, should not be taken to mean that people have become apathetic. In fact, after hearing President Benigno Aquino III vow that his administration would run after corrupt officials three times faster than government thieves, people expect that under his watch, the wheels of justice would turn with alacrity.