Ex-SolGen blasts Ombudsman for going after Arroyo anew

Former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza on Friday slammed the Office of the Ombudsman for investigating former President and Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo anew for plunder, a case that caused her detention for four years.

Arroyo has just been released from hospital arrest but Mendoza said Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales seemed bent on putting the former leader to jail again.

"I don’t think there can be anything more oppressive than that, if not cruel,” Mendoza, Arroyo's lead counsel, told reporters in Makati City.

Arroyo was accused of embezzling P366-million intelligence funds of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office from 2008 to 2010.

Believing she was innocent of the charges, the former president took her fight from the Sandiganbayan to the Supreme Court, which voted 11-4 last Tuesday to dismiss her case for insufficient evidence.

Disappointed by the ruling, Morales said on Wednesday that they were exploring their legal options including the possibility of indicting Arroyo for plundering at least P57 million state lottery funds from 2004 to 2007.

“Assuming that we can prove that there was pillaging and ransacking of the public treasury, and if after the preliminary investigation we believe probable cause lies then we’ll certainly hail her to court,” Morales said.

Arroyo walked out of the Veteran's Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City on Thursday, after receiving the signed copy of the SC order.  — BAP, GMA News