Comelec to block Arroyo attempt to fly to New York

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Wednesday quickly thumbed down suggestions that former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo seek a second opinion on her medical condition from specialists in New York, after doctors early this week found a blockage in her neck.

Comelec Chairman Sixto Brillantes Jr. said that should Arroyo’s camp formally file a petition to seek medical consultations abroad in the Pasay Regional Trial Court, the Comelec, being the prosecutors of her electoral sabotage case, would object to it.

“As the prosecution, we will always object to it. We will always oppose any move to bring her out of the country,” Brillantes told reporters during the launch of the Comelec’s new website for the 2013 balloting Wednesday.

As in previous attempts by Arroyo to leave the country to seek medical treatment abroad, Brillantes stressed that the Comelec could not risk allowing the former president to leave since she was facing a “capital offense.”

“It is capital punishment. If it were just an ordinary case, then we would have agreed to let her go,” he said.

The Comelec filed late last year an electoral sabotage case against Arroyo, now Pampanga representative, for her alleged role in the massive poll fraud in Maguindanao during the 2007 senatorial election.

Arroyo, who was placed under hospital arrest at Veterans Memorial Medical Center for eight months, gained temporary freedom after Pasay Judge Jesus Mupas granted her petition for bail early this month on the ground that the case against her was weak.

On Monday, she was taken to Makati Medical Center for an examination after the titanium plate supporting her cervical spine was displaced, a condition which her doctors described as “life-threatening.”

A cardiologist, who said Arroyo was suffering from a “30 to 40 percent” obstruction in her right coronary artery and left descending artery, had advised the former president to seek a second opinion in New York.

“[But] as far as the Comelec is concerned, there is no reason for her to leave. They can just bring the equipment here and treat her here so that there will be no more issue,” Brillantes said.

But Arroyo’s colleagues in the minority bloc on Wednesday said the former president should be allowed to fly abroad for medical treatment after her cardiologist told her to get a second opinion on her lingering cervical spine ailment.

In the two-page MMC bulletin signed by cardiologist Dr. Roberto Anastacio, the physician proposed another Quantum CT-Scan procedure on Arroyo “to determine the status of the risk and how to address it.”

“I do hope the patient will consider my serious suggestion of a reinvestigation and second opinion,” he wrote in the bulletin dated August 11, noting a “40-30 percent” obstruction in her coronary artery.

“The presence of a displaced titanium plate along C2-C3 is a serious factor in the mechanism of breathing and subsequently blood circulation which may lead to sudden death,” he warned.

Opposition congressmen are seeking the House leadership’s support for a resolution asking the court to lift the hold departure orders on Arroyo for humanitarian consideration.

Minority Leader Danilo Suarez was optimistic that such a resolution would solicit bipartisan support from the administration-dominated chamber.

“We saw the case of the (former) president and it’s not right that we will do nothing,” he said in a press conference.

“We are going to draft a resolution and I suppose it would be a resolution that would be supported by some members of the majority. This is nonpartisan. There’s no political color. (This is about) the health of a colleague.”

But Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., a former Arroyo ally,  shot down the idea, saying “we are at a stage where the jurisdiction over her is with the courts rather than with the political authorities.”