Luli hits ma’s continued detention

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo arrives at the Makati Medical Center in this 2011 file photo. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

THE CONDITION of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not improving, and her daughter has lamented the administration’s decision to ignore a United Nations body’s finding that her confinement was arbitrary and violative of international laws on human rights.

The UN High Commission on Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had called for reconsideration of Arroyo’s plea for bail, but the Philippine government replied that she has been accorded due process under the country’s laws.

Arroyo, detained for plunder, had undergone cervical spine surgery. She has difficulty swallowing food and has lost weight, her doctors said earlier.

Luli Arroyo-Bernas, the former president’s daughter, noted that the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, where her mother is confined under hospital arrest, could only handle the physical therapy and pain management part of her mother’s treatment.

“She’s not improving, unfortunately, and they’re also ignoring the UN resolution, so I don’t know how they will implement [a resolution] on China if they disregard one part of the UN,” Bernas told reporters.

She was referring to the case the Philippines has brought against China before a UN arbitral tribunal challenging Beijing’s claim to most of the South China Sea.

Bernas said she was not expecting any favors from the administration of President Aquino.

“I doubt he’ll even listen. I mean, if he doesn’t listen to his bosses, would he listen to us?”

“Have you heard him speak? Up to his last Sona, he was still putting the blame on my mother so what chance is available to her? He has already judged my mother to be in the wrong,” she said. Leila B. Salaverria

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