Former Philippine president Gloria Arroyo has said that she would challenge her arrest and detention at a military-run hospital on charges of plundering lottery funds by the Aquino government.
Arroyo is charged for allegedly conspiring to loot nearly nine million dollars in state lottery funds, a lawyer said on Friday.
“We could possibly go up to the Supreme Court and question the proceedings because there are some lapses,’’ Raul Lambino, one of the former president’s lawyers said.
Lambino said the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court issued the arrest warrant against Arroyo on Thursday in spite of a scheduled hearing on a pending motion to dismiss the charges against the former president for alleged lack of evidence.
President Benigno Aquino III, who won the 2010 Presidential election on an anti-corruption agenda, said he was confident the case against Arroyo was strong.
“We won’t file a case if the evidence is not strong, otherwise we will end up getting embarrassed,’’ he said.
The arrest warrant was the third issued against Arroyo since her term as president ended in 2010.
She was released on bail in July after spending eight months in detention at the military-run hospital on electoral fraud charges.
She also posted bail in March after the Sandiganbayan ordered her arrest on graft charges for allegedly receiving bribes and illegal commission from an anomalous government contract with a Chinese firm.
Plunder, or the crime of amassing ill-gotten wealth worth at least 50 million pesos (1.2 million dollars), is an offence ineligible for bail and punishable by life imprisonment.
The plunder case alleges that Arroyo and former officials of the state lottery and audit commission conspired to amass ill-gotten wealth amounting to 365.99 million pesos (8.82 million dollars) between 2008 and 2010.