Arroyo saddened by Senate recommendation for new plunder raps – lawyer

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was “saddened” by a Senate panel’s decision to recommend plunder charges against her for the alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) funds during her incumbency, one of her lawyers said Tuesday.   Lawyer Anacleto Diaz maintained that Mrs. Arroyo, now a congresswoman representing Pampanga’s second district, “never used her position to enrich herself.”   “The Senate report recklessly disregarded the point the former President Arroyo did not amass, accumulate or acquire any amount of the confidential intelligence funds of the PCSO which was the subject of the Senate investigation,” he said in a text message.   Senator Teofisto Guingona III, chairman of the Senate blue ribbon committee, announced Tuesday morning that the panel is preparing plunder raps against Mrs. Arroyo and former PCSO general manager and vice chairperson Rosario Uriarte.   Guingona quoted a committee report as saying that at least P244.5 million intelligence funds from 2008 to 2010 “were illegally siphoned to the pockets of Mrs. Uriarte and GMA [Mrs. Arroyo’s initials].”   In trying to refute the Senate panel report, Diaz said that the PCSO, during Mrs. Arroyo’s term, “reached unprecedented levels in revenues and benefits extended to the various charities, health and medical programs granted to our people.”   He also appealed to the Office of the Ombudsman, which will ultimately file the charges to the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court, to exercise “fair play and due process” once the plunder raps are lodged before it.   Mrs. Arroyo is currently detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center while facing an electoral sabotage case in connection with the alleged irregularities in the 2007 midterm elections.   She also has pending malversation charges at the Sandiganbayan for the supposed misuse of funds from the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) during her nine-year presidency. — KBK/KG, GMA News