GMA: I won’t wish my fate on enemies

MANILA, Philippines – Home at last after four years in detention, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo yesterday said she was a “victim of political persecution.”

“Let me be the last victim of political persecution using the justice system,” Arroyo said in her first interview since she was released from detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City on Thursday.

The 69-year-old Arroyo, who is afflicted with a degenerative disease affecting her spine, described her detention as “a lot of injustice to begin with.”

Arroyo, along with several other former officials, was accused of misusing P366 million in funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office. The Sandiganbayan has dismissed the cases against her alleged co-conspirators.

The Supreme Court on July 19 acquitted Arroyo of charges of conspiracy to commit plunder as it granted her petition to drop the case against her before the Sandiganbayan.

Her chief jailer, former president Benigno Aquino III, slammed the ruling while Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales is thinking of filing an appeal.

“What I learned from that is this whole thing of political power to persecute political enemies, that must stop,” Arroyo told The STAR in an interview at her home in La Vista, Quezon City.

“I’m not saying that political leaders should be immune from prosecution. What I’m saying is that the process should be fair and evenhanded, so let me be the last victim of political persecution using the justice system,” she added.

She said any rancor she may feel is not personal.

“I don’t wish what happened to me on my worst enemies,” she added.

She also lamented the persecution also included her political allies and even friends in the private sector.

But Arroyo thanked her police guards, doctors, nurses, nursing aides, and utility personnel at the VMMC who attended to her

“I can’t say enough how gracious they are,” she said. “My faith was very strong and when some (visiting) friends ask ‘would you want to pray with us for your pain?’ I would ask that we pray for my freedom because as far as my physical suffering, I offer it to Him.”

Another surgery?

While the VMMC doctors took very good care of her, Arroyo said there were new medical conditions that arose during her detention, including hypertension and possible liver trouble, and the constant pain in her arms and back refused to go away.

When she first entered the VMMC, she could not raise her left arm but with tedious physical therapy, she could now move it but the pain remains – which doctors attribute to degeneration of nerves.

Arroyo underwent three critical surgeries on her cervical spine in 2011 at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City, the last two being to correct the placement of titanium screws.

She was set to leave for abroad in 2011 for treatment after getting a nod from the SC but a tug-of-war ensued at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport where the Bureau of Immigration stopped her, claiming it needed to get the official hard copy of the high tribunal’s permission.

Over the years, one of the screws moved and was progressively pressing on her spinal cord that one specialist from the Makati Medical Center warned that she could succumb to “sudden death.”

“I hope to get a second opinion abroad,” Arroyo said.

Fair weather allies

Arroyo also said she was not surprised that her political allies started to leave her when she stepped down from the presidency, especially when the political persecution began.

She recalled the same thing happened to her father, the late president Diosdado Macapagal, when the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos succeeded him in 1965.

She said her father’s former allies renewed their ties with her when she became a senator and president.

Pet bills enacted into law

Despite being detained, Arroyo saw at least six of her bills enacted into law.

These include agricultural mechanization; rights of overseas Filipino workers and Filipinos with dual citizenships; ban on shark fishing and coral poaching; anti-drunk driving law; and Kasambahay law, which she co-authored with her son, then Camarines Sur congressman Diosdado Arroyo.

She credited her son for pushing for the passage of their bills.