Like Erap, ailing Gloria deserves house arrest - lawyers

If former President and Manila Mayor Joseph "Erap" Estrada was granted house arrest by the Sandiganbayan for a mere knee injury, then there is no reason for the court not to allow the plea of former President and Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to be detained in her residence, her lawyers said.

In their reply to the prosecution's opposition filed before the Sandiganbayan First Division Monday, Arroyo's lawyers said state prosecutors "keep turning a blind eye to the personal circumstances of President Arroyo."

Lawyers Jose Flaminiano and Laurence Arroyo said the 68-year-old former President has undergone three major spinal surgeries and her condition continues to worsen.

Arroyo is presently under hospital arrest at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City for plunder over the alleged misuse of intelligence funds of the state lottery firm.

Recalling Estrada's house arrest in Tanay, Rizal for plunder charges over illegal jueteng payola, Arroyo's lawyers said the Sandiganbayan should more so grant their client's plea because she "indisputably has not fully recovered from her spinal surgeries."

"The prosecution is fixated on this notion that President Arroyo is trying to get special treatment. The prosecution should rid itself of this fixation," they said.

"The prosecution should see her for what she is: a 68-year-old woman who has undergone three major spinal surgeries and whose condition, according to her doctors, has reached a 'plateau' in the hospital and for whom a 'change in environment' will do some good," they added.

Arroyo is asking to be detained either at her residence at La Vista, Quezon City or at Lubao, Pampanga, where she is congresswoman.

Arroyo condition will put PHL in bad light

Former Far Eastern University College of Law Dean Antonio Abad agrees with Arroyo's lawyers.

"Those who are similarly situated should be treated alike. Both of them are former Presidents of the Philippines just like (Fidel) Ramos so they belong to a class, a class of former presidents of the Philippines so therefore they should be treated alike," he said.

In his birthday celebration last month, Estrada said he wishes that Arroyo will be granted house arrest by the court.

Abad also added that the country might be put in a bad light if the United Nations Commitee on Human Rights rules favorably on the petition filed by human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin-Clooney to release Arroyo from detention.

"If the UN Commitee on Human Rights is going to issue a resolution that we are violating the human rights of GMA, that is going to be a big slap to our government," he said.

The House committee on justice recently approved voted 8-1 to approve Resolution 1908, urging the Sandiganbayan to grant house arrest to Arroyo. -- JST/NB, GMA News