Thus, said Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan on Thursday as former President and re-elected 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo remained in detention at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City.
Mabalacat City Mayor Marino “Boking” Morales said “justice is served. GMA should be allowed to go home immediately.”
Morales said a minute longer in detention is tantamount to injustice to the former president who was acquitted by the SC, the court of last resort.
“The Supreme Court has spoken…Let us respect and abide by the High Court’s decision,” Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said in a statement.
Voting 11-4, the SC En Banc dismissed the plunder case against Arroyo citing insufficiency of evidence on Tuesday and ordering her “immediate release from detention.”
Pamintuan said “she (Arroyo) was denied her right to swift justice. She was arrested initially without a warrant of arrest.”
The mayor said “Kapampangans should rejoice with her release from incarceration.”
But as of press time yesterday, Arroyo still remained in detention.
In published reports, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales said state prosecutors were conducting a preliminary investigation of another case against Arroyo that also involved the alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) funds.
Morales said the new case would involve an amount of P50 million upward qualifying it for plunder, a non-bailable offense.
Lawrence Arroyo, legal counsel of the former president, trooped to the SC at around 9 a.m. Wednesday in hopes of securing a copy of the document. Expressing dismay, he said the document still awaits the required signatures from SC justices, as of around 10:40 a.m.
Six years after Arroyo left office, they are still trying to file a case against her, said a law dean from San Beda College.
