Arroyo won’t leave today–spokesperson

MANILA, Philippines — Former President now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is not leaving today, Thursday, her aides said in separate interviews.

The decision was made by Ms Arroyo herself, her spokesperson Elena Bautista Horn said over Radyo Inquirer 990AM.

“She Is not feeling well, she knows how she feels,” Horn said. “She will leave in the next days because the Supreme Court has already said she can leave. But we will wait when she feels better,” she said in Filipino.

Horn said the former president has fluctuating blood pressure and would continue to rest at the St Luke’s Global City in Taguig.

“She keeps walking around the room, but with an IV, she is now in bed,” Horn added.

In a separate interview on television, Arroyo’s lawyer Raul Lambino quoted Arroyo as telling him “I don’t think I can manage to travel.” Lambino visited the hospital late Wednesday.

Arroyo and her husband Jose Miguel Arroyo tried to leave on Tuesday night for Singapore after the Supreme Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) lifting the Immigration watchlist order on the couple.

But Justice Secretary Leila de Lima maintained the watchlist order was in effect pending an oral argument which the Supreme Court has set in an en banc session on Friday, November 18.

Arroyo, 64, complained she could not sleep and her blood pressure was unstable while being treated at a Manila hospital she checked into late Tuesday after her failed travel attempt, Lambino said.

After her camp initially announced that she would try to fly again on Thursday, Arroyo had instead decided to rest until her condition improved, said Lambino, who did not say when she would make another bid to leave.

Arroyo was stopped from flying to Singapore on Tuesday night after she was escorted into Manila airport in a wheelchair and wearing a neck brace to support her spine that she says is weakened due to a rare bone disease.

The Philippine government insisted Wednesday she must stay in the country to face a graft investigation, defying the Supreme Court, which ruled she was free to seek medical care abroad.

Her dramatic attempt to leave came hours after the Supreme Court overturned a travel ban that President Benigno Aquino III’s administration put in place last week as it prepared to charge her with vote rigging and corruption.

Arroyo ruled the country for more than nine years, and was elected to the lower house of the Philippine parliament as her term ended last year.

For the full report on the interview with Elena Bautista-Horn, listen to Radyo Inquirer 990AM.