Security was jacked up on Saturday at Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City, with the presidential suite declared off-limits to unauthorized persons although Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not yet detained there.
The reason for declaring the suite a restricted area, even if it is detached from the main hospital, is to allow the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) to conduct “paneling,” or a check “for bombs and other contraband to ensure the former President’s safety,” said Senior Supt. Ranier Idio, QCPD deputy director for operations.
Police canine units from the National Capital Region Police Office’s Regional Public Safety Battalion conducted the paneling, supported by the QCPD’s own Explosives and Ordnance Division.
The restrictions began only Saturday morning, with policemen setting up a makeshift camp at the parking area near the presidential suite and security guards blocking the walkway leading to it.
This is because security has been “officially turned over” to the QCPD, Idio said. He said that “booms” had been installed to block vehicles at various control points in the hospital compound, and that these control points would be manned by policemen around the clock.
After the paneling, the matter of providing security will be turned over to the security group commander, Supt. Audie Madrideo, who heads the Masambong police station which has jurisdiction over VMMC.
Idio said the QCPD was ready for Arroyo’s transfer from St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City to VMMC anytime, even in the case of an airlift.
He said a “skeletal police force” had been deployed to secure the compound, and that more policemen would be brought in during the actual transfer.
She’s packing
Arroyo, now a Pampanga representative and under arrest for alleged electoral sabotage, has begun packing, her lawyer Ferdinand Topacio said.
“She has started to pack her personal effects and is ready to move to VMMC on Tuesday, if our motion for reconsideration [filed on Friday] will be denied,” he said.
Topacio said the motion for reconsideration of Pasay Judge Jesus Mupas’ order of transfer would be heard Monday. “Whatever the court decides we will abide with, and the former President is ready to move,” he said.
Mupas had ordered that the transfer be made not later than Tuesday.
Topacio said Arroyo “is mentally and spiritually prepared to move to VMMC, but hopeful that the court will grant an extension of her stay in St. Luke’s even until her colitis is completely cured.”
He said Arroyo would retain the services of her doctors even after she moves to VMMC.
Topacio also said Arroyo’s camp would insist that she be allowed access to the Internet and cell phones during her stay in the state hospital.
He said that as a lawmaker, Arroyo had to maintain communication with her constituents and colleagues.
“Depriving her of communication is curtailment of freedom of expression and another violation of her constitutional rights,” Topacio said.
No prohibition
“There’s no law prohibiting the use of cell phones and the Internet. Besides, the former President is not accused of being a terrorist and a drug dealer,” he said.
But according to President Aquino’s deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte, certain privileges, such as access to a mobile phone or a laptop connected to the Internet, are curtailed when one becomes a “detention prisoner” like Arroyo.
“This is an ordinary rule. When you become a detention prisoner, this amenity, if you can call it that, or luxury, is prohibited,” Valte said Saturday over radio dzRB. “These things are banned in jails.”
House arrest
Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives are preparing to file a resolution backing her appeal for house arrest, Quezon Rep. Danny Suarez told reporters after visiting the former president at St. Luke’s.
He said the resolution was being drafted and should be ready for filing “by Monday.”
“We do not want to touch on matters already in court because [the case is] sub judice. But it’s our duty to support a colleague whose rights could have been trampled [on],” Suarez said. He said Arroyo had been told of the planned resolution.
Suarez described Arroyo as “looking sick but in a good mood.”
Like Topacio, he said Arroyo was preparing for her transfer to VMMC in case Judge Mupas denies her motion of reconsideration.
Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said on Friday that the government would pay Arroyo’s bill at VMMC—an announcement that representatives of militant groups assailed on Saturday.
Rep. Emmi de Jesus of the party-list group Gabriela said detaining Arroyo at VMMC on “humanitarian grounds” was acceptable, but footing the bill for her stay in the hospital was “too much.”
“We all know how much wealth they have. If the government can give medical assistance to a rich person accused of a crime, can it give [the same] to the poor who are dying from lack of medical assistance?” De Jesus said in an interview at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani in Quezon City. With reports from TJ Burgonio and Norman Bordadora