DETAINED former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has been allowed to vote in her hometown of Lubao, Pampanga on May 9.
In its en banc session on Tuesday, the Supreme Court granted the plea of Mrs. Arroyo, who is currently detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, to be allowed to vote on May 9 elections.
The former president will leave the hospital at 7 a.m. to travel to Lubao, but she has to return after she casts her vote.
Arroyo, 68, is being tried by the Sandiganbayan for plunder, in connection with the alleged misuse of P366 million in intelligence funds for the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office from 2008 to 2010.
However, the trial proceedings have been suspended for 60 days, the second extension granted by the SC which is still deliberating on Arroyo’s appeal for the reversal of the Sandiganbayan decision, denying her bid to post bail.
In her petition, Arroyo cited her deteriorating health in asking the tribunal to overturn the rulings of the anti-graft court.
Arroyo also noted that the SC 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.