3 bishops back Arroyo bid to seek treatment abroad

AILING GLORIA Lawyer Estelito Mendoza presents this photo of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo wearing a 3-kg steel brace during Tuesday’s press conference in Makati City. Arroyo’s lawyers are asking the government to let their client go abroad for medical treatment. JOAN BONDOC

There is no lack in defenders of former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

A number of Catholic bishops, some of whom were Arroyo’s fiercest critics, on Wednesday warned that the disapproval of her petition to seek medical treatment abroad might “boomerang” on the Aquino administration.

Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said he believed that the government should allow Arroyo to travel abroad to prevent chaos should something “really bad” happen to her.

“I’ve never been a GMA (Arroyo) admirer but it doesn’t mean that you have to step on her even as she’s already on her knees,” Cruz said over the Church-run Radio Veritas.

He said there might be an endless round of finger-pointing in the government if the health of Arroyo, who is suffering from a bone ailment, deteriorated while forced to stay in the country.

Cruz also said that should Arroyo fail to return to the country, her illness alone was just punishment for her supposed crimes.

“Even if she hides abroad, her ailment will already serve justice,” said Cruz, a former president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

Fair judgment needed

Tagbilaran Bishop Leonardo Medroso echoed Cruz’s remarks, saying that even the much-criticized Arroyo had the “right to health.”

“In this occasion, the government must consider her right to health… If something bad happens to her, it will boomerang on the present administration,” Medroso said also on Radio Veritas.

Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo also said that “fair judgment, not vindictiveness,” should prevail vis a vis Arroyo’s petition.

“It is important that we seek the truth in this issue and we must not be overcome by vindictiveness or revenge to make someone suffer even more,” said Pabillo, who chairs the CBCP National Secretariat for Social Action.

But at the same time, Pabillo said Arroyo and her husband should be made to shed light on the accusations hurled at them, in order to ease the Aquino administration’s burden in finding the truth.

Far worse punishment

Arroyo’s lawyer, Estelito Mendoza, said President Aquino’s earlier announcement that his predecessor would be charged this month and the Department of Justice’s refusal to allow her to seek medical treatment abroad already amounted to unjust punishment.

“Forbidding her from leaving the country may have inflicted on her punishment far worse that the imprisonment contemplated, without trial or without final judgment of conviction.

Preventing her from leaving the country is no less a punishment not provided by law and not imposed by any court,” Mendoza said Wednesday at a press conference.

It was Mendoza, a former solicitor general and justice secretary, who filed Arroyo’s petition that the Supreme Court is to deliberate on at the resumption of its session next week.

Reacting to talk that Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had sought Mr. Aquino’s approval of her denial of Arroyo’s petition to leave, Mendoza said: “That implies that it was President Aquino who authorized this. I think that is very unfortunate. If [De Lima] cannot do anything to even assure that the constitutional rights of people are not violated without any clearance from the President, it is a very unfortunate situation.”

He also said there should be no doubt on the objectivity of the justice department.

Adherence to procedure

Mendoza said Arroyo had respected and adhered to the procedures of the law in the plunder and electoral sabotage complaints filed against her by the government.

He said she did not desire any “confrontation” with the Aquino administration, so she again complied with procedures when she applied for an allow-departure order in the hope that De Lima would act fairly and objectively on her request to travel.

Asked why Arroyo was protesting a circular that was adopted during her term, under De Lima’s predecessor Alberto Agra, Mendoza said the then President had nothing to do with the document.

“Let us assume that it was to her knowledge. Perhaps it was intended to be applied not the way it is being applied now. If they have implemented it prudently, maybe she would not have gone to the Supreme Court,” he said.

‘Right’ process needed

Senator Francis Escudero, an ally of Mr. Aquino, assailed De Lima for preventing Arroyo from seeking medical treatment abroad despite the absence of a court case against her.

He said De Lima had no business issuing a hold-departure order (HDO) because only the courts could prevent someone from going anywhere.

“The HDO just seems right because the subject is GMA. But what if they do it to you or me?” Escudero said in a phone interview with the Inquirer.

“Although I also don’t want her to escape, the process has to be right. The end doesn’t justify the means,” he said.

Escudero said the proper recourse should have been for De Lima to file a case against Arroyo in court, then ask it to issue an HDO, depending on the gravity of the case. With a report from Christian V. Esguerra

Originally posted: 6:37 pm | Wednesday, November 9th, 2011