Tuesday afternoon (July 19), former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was all set to leave her presidential suite at the Veterans Memorial Hospital where she had been in virtual solitary confinement since October 2012, crippled by a severe neck pain and a botched spinal cord operation.
Earlier, on national television, the Supreme Court spokesman had read the dispositive portion of the high court’s 11-4 decision dismissing the plunder criminal case against her filed before the Sandigan “for insufficiency of evidence” and ordering “the immediate release from detention of said petitioners (Gloria Arroyo and PCSO budget officer Benigno Aguas).”
Alas, as I was writing this column yesterday, before 5 p.m., Arroyo was still at the Veterans hospital awaiting the Sandiganbayan order for her release.
If there is one example of what the Constitution bans, which is “cruel, degrading or inhuman punishment,” it is the Arroyo case is.
First, with the filing of a flimsy case of plunder (a non-bailable offense) against her in 2012 by the then administration of President Benigno Simeon (BS) Cojuangco Aquino III, on the charge of alleged misuse of P366 million in “intelligence funds” of the state-run Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO). Plunder is if the accused amassed the money (in this case, PCSO’s P366 million) herself and used it for her personal benefit. Arroyo never received or used the money, which went to PCSO operation, which is charity. The Commission on Audit certified to the proper use of the funds.
Second, by the Supreme Court itself delaying the release of its full decision exonerating Arroyo from the plunder case. The cause of delay? Red tape, the bane of nearly all Filipinos below Arroyo’s level. The full SC decision acquitting the former president of plunder was issued only yesterday, at 1:20 p.m. It had to be physically transmitted, 15 kilometers from west to east of Metro Manila (where afternoon traffic is 5 kilometers per hour), to the Sandiganbayan which also has its own set of procedures (meaning more red tape), and then to the Camp Crame headquarters of the Philippine National Police, whose members guard Arroyo, and PNP has its own command structure and set of procedures (which means even more red tape). From PNP Camp Crame, the order of release was to be transmitted in the middle of 5 p.m. traffic to Veterans. Wow! Jesus Christ reached Golgotha faster than that because he died at 3 p.m. on just one Good Friday.
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte has identified two major enemies of his administration—illegal drugs and red tape. Plus corruption (but that is another issue). Two to 10 people, alleged drug users, are killed daily, by the PNP, without proper procedures (called due process). But I haven’t heard of anyone being murdered for red tape (I guess it requires due process, which means again, red tape). Even if he wants to, I don’t think Duterte, a lawyer, can order the murder of members of the Judiciary. Separation of powers, you know. Duterte also said in his inaugural, addressing the two other branches of the government, “Mind your work and I will mind mine.”
The tribunal’s Arroyo acquittal decision shamed two institutions—the Ombudsman, in the person of Conchita Carpio-Morales, and the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan. The SC ruling showed they were incompetent and apparently didn’t know the law. That is why Arroyo’s lawyers, led by the aging but still sharp Estelito Mendoza, filed a case, last year, of demurrer to evidence. It meant the evidence was weak.
During Mrs. Arroyo’s nearly four-year imprisonment at Veterans, I was lucky to have been allowed to visit her once, last year. At the entrance to her hospital room, you are frisked and told to surrender your cellphone and camera (if any). As I sauntered into her sala, I saw Mrs. Arroyo seated on a sofa. She greeted me warmly, although she could not stand up. She had a neck brace. She warned me not to conduct an interview nor to take pictures. She told me she is denied the use of cellphones, laptop or desktop computer. She is not even allowed to watch television. Former Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera says during her stay at the hospital, Mrs. Arroyo was not allowed to go to the chapel, to hear mass. Still, during the two hours I spent with the former president, she was calm, in high spirits and not at all bitter.
Why was Mrs. Arroyo imprisoned? What does BS Aquino III hate her so much? “The animosity stemmed mostly from Arroyo’s refusal to back Cory Aquino’s crooked formula for shielding Hacienda Luisita from agrarian reform—the infamous stock distribution option [SDO],” volunteers pundit Yen Makabenta, Manila Times columnist.
Yen wrote in his column yesterday:
“When BS Aquino was installed in turn in the presidency in 2010, he fantasized that it was payback time against Arroyo. He started by orchestrating successfully the impeachment of then-Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, who had to be removed for any assault on Arroyo to succeed.”
“Aquino’s vindictiveness—which sometimes took comical turns by incessantly blaming Arroyo for his administration’s shortcomings, and grabbing credit for the achievements of Arroyo as President—was always about Hacienda Luisita.”
I have covered presidents from Dadong Macapagal to Digong Duterte. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is one of the brightest, most pro-people, and one of our best presidents. In her last year in office, she scored the highest growth rate for the economy, 8.2 percent on an annual basis. She even scored an 8.9-percent quarterly GDP growth (second quarter 2009), the highest ever.
By the end of her nine-year presidency, the second longest for a Philippine president, Arroyo had increased tax revenue, modernized the economy with heavy infra spending, tripled the per capita income of the Filipino, saved the economy from recession twice, and made it one of the world’s most resilient, dynamic and fastest growing. Her record of 38 quarters of consecutive growth is unprecedented.
During her time, she coped with the most hostile constituency and media ever faced by a president. Thanks to the Yellow Propaganda Machine.
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