Arroyos have booked flight to Singapore

MANILA, Philippines—Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo have booked a flight to Singapore after the Supreme Court temporarily stopped the Aquino government from preventing her trips abroad while she was being investigated for plunder and election sabotage complaints.

A source told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Arroyos booked seats in the Philippine Airlines Flight PR505 scheduled for 7:35 p.m. on Tuesday night.

The Supreme Court ruled 8-5 in issuing a TRO on the watch-list order of the Department of Justice, which empowered the justice secretary to decide whether to allow Arroyo to leave or not.

Arroyo has asked the DOJ to allow her to leave for several countries so she could get treatment for her bone ailment.

The DOJ, however, said she was a flight risk.  But it has not concluded the preliminary investigation of the various plunder and election sabotage suits against her.

The country’s Constitution, however, provides that a person who has not been charged in court cannot be stopped from travelling unless the person is a threat to national security, public safety or health.