MANILA — Ex-Philippine president Gloria Arroyo should be in a jail cell rather than a hospital room while awaiting trial for alleged vote-rigging and corruption, a spokesman for her successor said Thursday.
President Benigno Aquino’s spokesman Edwin Lacierda questioned if Arroyo was really so ill that she should remain in the relative comfort of a military hospital, where she has been confined for six months.
“If everything is well with her, she should be placed in a cell. Hospital arrest should not be used as a basis to feign illness,” Lacierda told ABS-CBN television.
Arroyo, who stepped down in 2010 after nearly a decade in office, was arrested late last year and charged with allegedly rigging the 2007 senatorial elections. — AFP