State lawyers oppose Arroyo house arrest

GOVERNMENT lawyers opposed the move by  former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for a house arrest, saying she is using her medical condition to convince the court in whimsically changing her detention place.

The lawyers made their opposition to the house arrest plea of Arroyo who is facing plunder for allegedly misusing government charity funds in a comment submitted to the court.

“She is leading us to succumb into what she perceives as conundrum from her medical condition to get extra-legal and extra-constitutional relief,” the panel added.

In her motion 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 might 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.

But the prosecutors said Arroyo’s house arrest motion runs counter to her original request to be under hospital arrest due to her spine condition.

“Logically, the arguments raised by the accused that she be placed under house arrest runs counter to her actual medical condition which was the ground used in placing her under hospital arrest,” prosecutors said.

Arroyo 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.

Prosecutors countered that if Arroyo wants to be under house arrest and be taken out of the hospital, she is then physically capable to be detained even in an ordinary custodial center.

“(It) follows that her present condition now permit her to stay in any other place including an ordinary custodial center made available for similarly situated persons in custody for being indicted of committing a crime,” prosecutors said.

Arroyo in her motion cited a Supreme Court ruling upholding the Sandiganbayan’s decision to allow former President (now Manila mayor) 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.

The prosecutors said Arroyo’s situation is different from Estrada’s.

The panel said Estrada initially detained at the VMMC was only allowed to be transferred to his rest house in Tanay because it is near Camp Capinpin.

Estrada also sold his property rights over the house to Camp Capinpin so that in effect he would still be under detention within a facility of Camp Capinpin, the panel said.

Prosecutors also said Arroyo’s medical condition is different from Estrada, who then only needed therapy on his knees and did not need medical supervision as with Arroyo.

“To be detained in one’s home is a transgression of the rule of law and an insult to the judicial system and to other detention prisoners also facing plunder before the Sandiganbayan,” the panel said.

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 Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (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.