Philippine police officers took the mugshots and fingerprints of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at a Manila hospital on Saturday, where she is under heavy guard after being arrested on charges of fraud.
“The former president was sitting in a reclining position on her bed when her fingerprints and pictures were taken,” Senior Superintendent Joel Coronel, head of the national police’s criminal investigation and detection group, told reporters outside St.
Luke’s hospital. “She was wearing a hospital gown and a neck brace but was responding to queries from our medical team. An intravenous fluid is hydrating her,” he said. A police officer took Arroyo’s mugshots, Coronel said. He declined to release copies of the photographs, saying they would be reported to a lower court that issued an arrest warrant on Friday that stopped her from leaving the country.
Arroyo, elected into the lower house of Congress last year, was scheduled to fly to Singapore after the Supreme Court upheld its earlier suspension of the government’s travel ban on her and her husband. Her arrest comes 18 months after President Benigno Aquino won an election by vowing to fight corruption and prosecuting those responsible, and particularly pursue Arroyo.
The former leader’s legal spokesman, Raul Lambino, said they will question the lower court’s jurisdiction to handle the electoral sabotage charges against Arroyo when they appear before the Pasay City regional trial court on Monday.
