Philippines Arrests Ex-President
The former president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was arrested in her hospital room on Friday on charges of election fraud, her attorney said, after days of dramatic tussling with the government over whether she would be allowed to leave the country. Mrs. Arroyo, 64, said she suffers from a bone ailment that requires medical treatment unavailable in the Philippines. Government officials suspected that the former president, who has denied any wrong doing, might be seeking to flee the country to avoid an eventual arrest on election fraud and corruption charges. The government of President Benigno S. Aquino III has sought to keep her in the country while she is under investigation, but the Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that she could not be restricted from travelling. Her attorney, Raul Lambino said by telephone that Mrs. Arroyo had prepared herself for the possibility of an arrest and was silent when it happened. He said that the police officers on the scene assured the former president’s lawyers that she would not be taken to the police station and would be held in custody in her hospital room.
The arrest followed the filing of election fraud charges Friday afternoon in the Pasay Regional Trial Court in Manila. A conviction could result in a sentence of 40 years to life in prison. Mr. Lambino said that he expected the charges to be dismissed quickly. He said that the regional trial court where the charges were filed has no jurisdiction over a former president. A special high-level court, known as the Sandiganbayan, is mandated with handling charges of corruption against senior government officials, he said. “They filed these charges in this court simply as a matter of expediency in order to obtain the arrest warrant,” Mr. Lambino said. “We are confident that the higher court will dismiss this action swiftly. This is a clear violation of the president’s human rights by this government.” The former president’s husband, Jose Miguel Arroyo, issued a statement saying Mrs. Arroyo had been “railroaded” with invalid charges filed in haste in the lower court in order to block Mrs. Arroyo from traveling overseas. “This is a sad day for due process,” he said in a statement. Philippine presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda dismissed the criticism, noting: “It’s always a sad day when they lose.” On Tuesday, the Philippine Supreme Court had ruled that Mrs. Arroyo could leave the country for medical care. At the time, she was under investigation for corruption and electoral fraud, but had not been formally charged. But later that day, as she attempted to board a flight to Singapore, she was blocked by airport officials on orders of the government.
On Friday, the Supreme Court reaffirmed its previous ruling and ordered the Philippine government to comply. “As far as this court is concerned the Arroyo couple can leave,” Supreme Court spokesman Jose Midas Marquez said. The election fraud charges filed Friday, in the lower court, are a separate matter, Mr. Marquez said. Because the charges resulted in the issuance of an arrest warrant, he said, they nullified the Supreme Court’s ruling that allowed Mrs. Arroyo to travel. This effectively ended the standoff between high court and government, he said. Earlier in the week, the attorney for Mrs. Arroyo’s husband, Ferdinand Topacio, said in a television interview that he was so confident in his clients that he would have one of his testicles removed if the Arroyos went overseas and did not return to face charges.