Arroyo to face court on poll fraud charge

Former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

MANILA, Philippines—Former president and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is expected to plead not guilty when she appears in court on Thursday for the first time since being charged with rigging an election.

Arroyo faces life in jail if convicted of conspiring with a feared political warlord to rig the 2007 senatorial elections, but she has denied any wrongdoing and insists her successor, Benigno Aquino III, is waging a vendetta against her.

“I have peace of mind because my conscience is clear,” Arroyo, 64, told local television station GMA in her last public comments in December.

Court officials said Arroyo, who was arrested in November shortly after authorities stopped her from trying to leave the Philippines, was required to formally answer the charge against her in person at Thursday’s hearing.

Her lawyers and spokeswoman declined to speak with AFP ahead of the scheduled arraignment.

The vote-rigging case is the first of many charges Aquino has promised to file against his predecessor, whom he has accused of many corrupt acts while she was in power from 2001 to 2010.

Aquino, the son of democracy heroes, won a landslide election victory in 2010 on a vow to fight corruption that has plagued Philippine society for decades but he said worsened dramatically during Arroyo’s reign.

Arroyo has been the top target of his anti-graft campaign.

But three weeks after Arroyo’s arrest, Aquino’s allies in the lower house of parliament also impeached Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona on charges of corruption and protecting the ex-president.

The Senate’s impeachment trial, which has been going on for a month, has raised political tensions with an influential church group expressing support for Corona and Aquino railing publicly against his foes.

In a speech on Tuesday, Aquino warned his anti-corruption efforts hinged on successful prosecutions of Arroyo and Corona.

“If certain elements are still able to prevent Gloria Arroyo, for example, from being held accountable, then it makes a mockery of our anti-corruption efforts,” he said.

“We want to send a stern yet simple message: justice evades no one. There are no exceptions in our campaign against corruption.”

Aquino, who says she is suffering from a rare spinal illness, was arrested at an exclusive hospital three days after immigration authorities stopped her at Manila’s airport from leaving the country.

Arroyo’s lawyer said then her illness was life threatening, and the Supreme Court under Corona issued an order saying she was allowed to leave the country for treatment.

But Aquino insisted Arroyo was trying flee to evade prosecution and that she was not allowed to leave.

Arroyo, the country’s second female president who is now a congresswoman after winning a parliamentary seat in the 2010 elections, was transferred shortly after her arrest to a military hospital.

She has remained at the hospital since, and was charged in December with a second criminal case involving a $330-million telecom deal with a Chinese firm, in which her husband and a political ally allegedly received kickbacks.