LUBAO, Pampanga, Philippines – It’s good to be home.
This was former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s message to her constituents during her visit here yesterday after more than four years in detention.
Arroyo was greeted by her supporters when she arrived at the San Agustin parish church, where she attended a concelebrated mass led by retired archbishop Paciano Aniceto.
Wearing a neck brace – which she removed before the mass – Arroyo was accompanied by her husband Mike, their sons Mikey and Dato and granddaughters Evie and Mikaela. ??
In addressing her cabalens, Arroyo thanked Pampanga Gov. Lilia Pineda and her family, Aniceto and the other Kapampangan priests, local officials as well as those who visited her at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center, where she had been detained. ?
“You never abandoned me during my incarceration and visited me despite so much restrictions. No phone, no Internet. The only means we could communicate was through your visits,” she said.
She thanked Aniceto for holding mass in her hospital room whenever he was in Manila.??She said not only her, but also her cabalens went through “calvary” during her detention. ??
She also thanked those who reelected her as congresswoman. ??
“Our calvary is over and let us unite again to do our work,” she said.
She hosted a breakfast in her home near the church after the mass. She declined media interviews.
Arroyo canceled her planned return to Lubao last week after suffering fatigue following a battery of tests at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.