MANILA, Philippines – The Sandiganbayan First Division granted a motion filed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to leave the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in order to undergo a medical check-up and breast cancer screening.
The ex-president, now Pampanga representative “has a high risk of developing breast cancer because her mother had breast cancer,” Theresa Lopez, Arroyo’s personal physician, said.
The tests could not be done at the VMCC, for lack of proper equipment.
Justices of the anti-graft court said that Arroyo must take care of all expenses incurred, as well as willingly subject herself to tight police guard, to be oordinated by the Sandiganbayan sheriffs.
Meanwhile, Antonio Abad, former law dean at Far Eastern University and Adamson University, expressed his views that Arroyo should be granted bail; pointing out that her co-accused were long ago given provisional liberty.
“She should have been granted bail a long time ago when her co-accused in the case had been granted their bail,” he said.
“Under conspiracy for which they have been charged, the act of one is the act of all, so if her co-accused were granted bail because the evidence against them is not strong, how is it that she was not given the same ruling? For me that is really legally wrong and not fair,” Abad added.