SC allows Arroyo to vote in Pampanga hometown

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. AP FILE PHOTO

The Supreme Court has allowed former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to vote in her hometown in Lubao, Pampanga on May 9.

Arroyo is detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).

She will be leaving her detention at 7 a.m. to travel to Lubao but has to be back after she casts her vote.

Arroyo, 68, is detained at the VMMC for  the alleged misuse of P366 million in intelligence funds for the PCSO from 2008 to 2010 supposedly for personal gain.

The trial on her plunder case has been suspended for 60 days, the second extension granted by the high court.

Arroyo is asking the high court to reverse the Sandiganbayan ruling denying her bid to post bail.

In her petition, Arroyo cited her deteriorating health in asking the high court to reverse the rulings of the Sandiganbayan.

Arroyo said the high court had ruled in many cases that detainees are entitled to bail “if their continuous confinement during the pendency of their case would be injurious to their health or endanger their life.”

The petitioner invoked the case of De La Rama, where the high court ruled that hospital arrest “fell short of meeting or accomplishing the humanitarian purpose or reason underlying the doctrine adopted by modern trend of courts’ decisions which permit bail to prisoners, irrespective of the nature and merits of the charge against them, if their continuous confinement during the pendency of their case would be injurious to their health or endanger their life.” JE/rga

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