Lawmaker joins calls for GMA house arrest

A stalwart of the Liberal Party has joined mounting calls in the House of Representatives for the Sandiganbayan to allow former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to be placed under house arrest due to her deteriorating health.

Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice said he was concerned after seeing Arroyo on television “looking very thin and sick.”

“I don’t think there’ll be any objection from prosecutors if the Sandiganbayan allows her to be placed under house arrest for humanitarian reasons,” Erice said in an interview.

“She’s aging, sick and losing so much weight because of her illness,” he said.

The lawmaker said allowing Arroyo to be placed under house arrest would not in anyway affect her plunder case before the anti-graft court.

The 68-year-old Arroyo has been detained at the Veterans’ Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City for alleged misuse of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds.

She is suffering from a degenerative bone disease affecting her spine.

Her doctors at the VMMC have recommended that she placed under house arrest to allow her to recuperate.

International human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of Hollywood star George Clooney, earlier took the cudgels for Arroyo, filing a complaint before the United Nations Human Rights Committee against President Aquino for keeping her under detention and barring her from using any form of communication.

Clooney said she believed the Sandiganbayan and other government agencies are being pressured into denying Arroyo’s petition for bail.

Paolo Romero