After losing bid to dismiss PCSO plunder case, Arroyo seeks house arrest

A DAY after the court denied her move to dismiss the evidence against her, former president Gloria Arroyo has asked the Sandiganbayan for house arrest as she faces plunder charges over the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) charity fund mess.

In a motion Wednesday to modify custodial arrangement, Arroyo, now Pampanga representative, asked the court to transfer her place of detention from the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, (VMMC) where she is under hospital arrest, to her residence in La Vista, Quezon City.

Arroyo said a house arrest may help her heal faster from her spine ailment, having undergone three spine surgeries already.

“It is hoped that President Arroyo’s house arrest can help her recuperate and heal more quickly and fully,” the motions said.

She also said being detained in her residence is no different than being detained in the hospital, adding that a house arrest is not a special treatment.

“House arrest is not special treatment. It is a mode of arrest allowed by the Rules and recognized by the Supreme Court,” Arroyo in the motion said.

Arroyo cited a Supreme Court ruling upholding the Sandiganbayan’s decision to allow former President Joseph Estrada house arrest in his rest house in Rizal as he faced plunder charges over illegal jueteng money. Estrada was later convicted by the court but pardoned by Arroyo.

She also said being detained in her residence would not be a threat to the community, citing the peaceful situation during her four-day Christmas furlough granted by the court last December.

Arroyo filed the motion for house arrest a day after the antigraft court’s first division denied her demurrer of evidence, a move to dismiss the supposedly weak evidence against her and dismiss the case.

Arroyo is under hospital detention due to plunder for allegedly using P366 million in intelligence funds for the PCSO from 2008 to 2010 for personal gain.

The former president is confined at the VMMC as she claimed to be suffering from cervical spondylosis, a degenerative disease of the bones and cartilage of the neck.

Arroyo had also complained of “generalized body weakness, persistent pain over the nuchal and left shoulder with numbness of both hands and frequent episodes of choking,” according to the VMMC