MANILA – Former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo credited President Rodrigo Duterte for playing a role in the Supreme Court’s decision dismissing plunder charges against her.
During the appreciation dinner hosted by members of the 17th Congress on Tuesday night, the former House Speaker thanked Duterte for granting her freedom.
“I thank you that when you became President, you provided the atmosphere in which the Court had the freedom to acquit me of the trumped up charges my successor and your predecessor filed against me,” Arroyo said of Duterte.
She added: “The Court voted 11-4 in my favor, including half of those who were appointed by my accuser (former president Benigno Aquino III).”
Arroyo has been freed from hospital detention after the Supreme Court, in an 11-4 voting in 2016, acquitted her from plunder charges in the P366-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office fund scam.
The high court ruled that there was not enough evidence to prove that Arroyo committed plunder and that there was a conspiracy in the unlawful use of the charity funds.
During her almost four years of imprisonment, the former president held office as Pampanga representative at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City./PN
