Arroyo to seek third term as Pampanga representative

Former President and now Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. AP FILE PHOTO

Former President Gloria Arroyo will seek a third term as Pampanga representative even as she is detained for plunder over an alleged charity funds mess.

In a press conference on Thursday, Atty. Raul Lambino, who is a deputy secretary general for Arroyo’s Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD), said he would be the one to file Arroyo’s certificate of candidacy in her re-election bid.

“Ang pagkakaalam ko po magfa-file siya para sa kinatawan ng ikalawang distrito ng Pampanga under Lakas CMD. Pineprepare ko ang kaniyang certificate of nomination and acceptance as official candidate of Lakas,” Lambino said.

Arroyo ran and won as Pampanga representative in 2010 after her term as president for nine years. Her congressional bid is believed to be an attempt to be immune from suit amid several corruption allegations during her term.

Arroyo served her first term present in the plenary until her arrest in Oct. 2012. Arroyo was ordered arrested on charges of plunder for allegedly stealing from state lottery funds. Arroyo had proceeded to the hospital before the warrant against her was served.

Claiming to be suffering from a degenerative bone disease, Arroyo was ordered to be placed under hospital detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center. Arroyo won her re-election bid in 2013 even while under detention.

Arroyo is accused of using P366 million in intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) for personal gain from 2008 to 2010.

Arroyo’s lawyers had decried political persecution in the charges. She had elevated her situation before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in a human rights complaint represented by renowned human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, the wife of US actor George Clooney.

READ: PH gov’t to UN: Gloria Arroyo given due process | ‘UN body: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s detention arbitrary, illegal’

In a press statement, Arroyo’s lawyer Lorenzo Gadon had claimed Clooney emailed him about the UN Working Group resolution finding Arroyo’s hospital detention a case of arbitrary arrest and political persecution.