Arroyo asks QC court to junk P15-M suit filed by ‘Morong 43’

MANILA, Philippines—Former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has asked a Quezon City court to dismiss the P15-million damage suit filed against her by health workers belonging to the so-called “Morong 43.”

Citing the plaintiffs’ failure to state a cause of action for the civil complaint filed in April 2011, the former president pointed out that her name was not even stated in any of the plaintiffs’ affidavits.

“(It) does not contain any allegation of bad faith, malice or gross negligence on the part of defendant, in order to create at least any reasonable connection between defendant’s being president and the damage allegedly suffered by the plaintiffs, as to make defendant accountable for the damage purportedly afflicted,” Arroyo said in her motion, which was filed in late 2011 before Judge Ma. Luisa Q. Padilla of Regional Trial Court Branch 226.

The health workers were arrested in the waning days of Arroyo administration in 2010 and detained in Morong, Rizal on suspicion of being communist rebels. They were freed months after President Benigno Aquino assumed the presidency.

In April 2011, the Morong 43 lodged the P15-million damage suit against Arroyo and 10 other officials for their allegedly illegal detention during Arroyo’s term.

In November 20100, the health workers filed an urgent motion to resolve, asking Judge Padilla to require Arroyo et al. to answer the damage suit.

Arroyo said the health workers’ complaint, which is the failure to stop human rights abuses, is “a duty owed to the people in general and not to anyone in particular.”

The P15-million civil case against her is a “suit against the state,” she added.

The motion argued that the complaint protests the government’s national security plan and it was just “incidental” that Arroyo was the incumbent President when the plaintiffs suffered the damages.

Arroyo also cited part of the Administrative Code, which noted that a public officer cannot be held civilly liable for his acts unless there is a “clear showing of bad faith, malice or gross negligence.”

The former President has been under hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City since December 2011 on charges of electoral sabotage filed with a Pasay City court.