The Supreme Court will deliberate the latest petition for bail of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
The 115-page petition filed by Mrs. Arroyo through lawyer and former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza last week has been included in the agenda of the SC justices in their regular full court session today.
The detained leader had filed a petition with the SC last April seeking the reversal of the ruling of the Sandiganbayan First Division last February denying her motion for bail, in the remaining plunder case against her involving the P366-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office fund anomaly.
Acting on this petition, the SC already directed the Sandiganbayan last June to answer the petition.
But in her latest pleading, Mrs. Arroyo urged the high court to now rule on her case as she cited the recent report from the United Nations Technical Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said recommending her release from detention.
The UN panel has recommended the reconsideration of Mrs. Arroyo’s application for bail “in accordance with the relevant international human rights standards.”
Arroyo asserted that the UN panel’s position was consistent with the petition for bail and demurrer to evidence her defense lawyers filed before the Sandiganbayan First Division.
The UN panel is composed of five independent human rights experts. Arroyo is represented in the UN by international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney.
Mrs. Arroyo also reiterated her prayer for issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) stopping the proceedings on the plunder case before the anti-graft court.
In her petition, Mrs. Arroyo cited her deteriorating health in asking the high court to reverse the rulings of the Sandiganbayan’s First Division in October last year and last February denying her bail motion in the case involving the P366-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) fund anomaly.
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 theirlife.”
Given her condition, the former president pleaded that hospital detention would not suffice for her recovery.
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 bymodern 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.”
Arroyo has been detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) while standing trial in the non-bailable plunder charge due to her cervical spondylosis, a degenerative disease of the bones andcartilage of the neck.
While government lawyers alleged conspiracy, almost all of Arroyo’s co-accused are either out on bail or had been acquitted of the charges.
