Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo back on global stage

Ten years after the Philippines last hosted the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit in January 2007, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) is only too happy to see the initiatives she put forth when she chaired this annual gathering are now bearing fruits. Now as Congresswoman in her home district in Lubao, Pampanga, Mrs. Arroyo lauded President Rodrigo Duterte for continuing with these Philippine initiatives that would benefit not just Filipinos but the rest of the 650 million people of the 10-member states of the ASEAN.

Hosting on round-robin basis, the Philippines chaired again the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit, coinciding with its 50th founding anniversary also this year. Undertaking this on the first 17 months into office of the Duterte administration, Mrs. Arroyo was among the country’s former presidents who were invited to take part in some of the official activities during the ASEAN Summit.

A staunch ally of President Duterte, Mrs. Arroyo has only the highest admiration to the former Davao City Mayor for having steered to fruitful discussions the just concluded ASEAN Leaders’ Summit and with dialogue partners from the East Asia Summit.

“I am gratified that at yesterday’s summit opening, President Duterte heralded the landmark signing of the ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. It is the fruition of what we started in 2007,” Mrs. Arroyo declared before the Asean Business-Investment Summit (ABIS) 2017 at the Solaire Hotel and Casino in Pasay City held last Wednesday.

Mrs. Arroyo was the last guest speaker at the end of the three-day ABIS, a private sector business-led gathering that was held parallel with the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit. Mrs. Arroyo disclosed it was her former presidential adviser on entrepreneurship Jose Concepcion III – who is also the current adviser of President Duterte – who asked her to talk about the future of the ASEAN in the next 50 years.

Mrs. Arroyo suggested for the ASEAN Leaders to change its consensus-based decision-making to majority rule. If the regional bloc “wants to be a global leader” in this part of the world and wield its clout, it must adopt the majority rule, she urged.

In 2007, she revealed, she used her “general prerogative” as chairperson of the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit to push for the declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. It was the most contentious chairman’s initiative in the 2007 summit, she recalled, because all ASEAN member-states also send workers and receive workers. “And of course, they had deep differences of opinion, but we invoked our chairmanship to push that initiative, on account of so many Filipino workers overseas,” she pointed out.

Flashback. On Nov. 19, 2011, Mrs. Arroyo was served an arrest warrant for alleged electoral sabotage case filed against her by the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Wearing a hospital gown and a neck brace, newly elected then as Pampanga Congresswoman, Mrs.Arroyo was in bed at a 16th-floor suite of St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City when the police served the warrant. A non-bailable offense, it was issued by Judge Jesus Mupas of Pasay City Regional Trial Court Branch 112.

Mrs. Arroyo, who underwent surgery for multiple cervical spondolysis, or the wearing off of the bones, has been subsequently placed under hospital detention at the government-run Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) since Oct. 2012. She stayed at the same VMMC suite where former president Joseph Estrada also underwent hospital detention. 

Mrs. Arroyo, together with former election officer Lintang Bedol and the late governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. were accused of rigging the election in favor of administration candidates in the 2007 senatorial elections in Maguindanao.

This was the first criminal case filed against Mrs. Arroyo when then Justice Secretary and now Senator Leila de Lima prevented the former president from boarding her plane at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) for medical treatment abroad. This was just 17 months after she turned over power to her successor, ex-president Benigno Aquino III.

On July 16, 2012, the Ombudsman filed a P366-M plunder suit against Mrs. Arroyo for the alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence funds during her administration from 2008 to 2010. This was the first of plunder cases – also non-bailable – filed against her.

Fast forward.

After nearly four years of being under hospital arrest, Mrs. Arroyo was finally allowed to post bail for her PCSO plunder case. This was two days after the Supreme Court (SC), voting 11-4, acquitted Arroyo and former PCSO board member Benjamin Aguas of plunder on the PCSO case. She was acquitted a week before the opening of the 17th Congress, where she is serving her third and last term. 

Eight of the 11 justices who ruled in their favor are Arroyo appointees. But the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan issued her release order from her hospital detention at the VMMC in October last year. Aguas and the other co-accused of Mrs. Arroyo in the case, except her, had long been out on bail.

After a long delay, the trial in the electoral sabotage case of Mrs. Arroyo will resume in the first week of December with continuing presentation of prosecution witness. She was earlier allowed by the court to post P1.2 million bail for her temporary liberty after the prosecution failed to present strong evidence during the bail hearings. The decision of Judge Mupas was subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeals.

Mrs. Arroyo was earlier designated one of the deputy speakers. She subsequently lost her post after having voted against the approval of restoring the Death Penalty law. Last month, she was sworn in by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez as PDP-Laban member to formally join the ruling party of President Duterte.

At 70 years old, Mrs. Arroyo is looking well, without any more support of neck brace.

Now back on the global stage, GMA is in her best element among world leaders.