Ex-PCSO GM in Arroyo plunder case seeks bail

Former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office General Manager Rosario Uriarte, the so-called “missing link” in the plunder case of former President and now Deputy Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, has asked the Sandiganbayan to grant her bail for medical reasons.

In a 15-page motion submitted to the anti-graft court’s First Division, Uriarte, through her lawyers, also sought the magistrates’ permission to be placed under house arrest for six to 10 months for medical and humanitarian reasons after doctors found a tumor in her breast.

Uriarte said her doctors have recommended that she undergo “neoadjuvant or pre-operative” chemotherapy before surgery is performed on her. 

The former PCSO executive, together with Arroyo and eight others, was charged with plunder by the Office of the Ombudsman in July 2012 over the alleged misuse of PCSO's P366-million intelligence fund.

She surrendered to authorities last November after more than four years in hiding and pleaded not guilty to the plunder charge.

Citing the case of former senator Juan Ponce Enrile, Uriarte said she should be immediately granted bail due to the current state of her health.

Enrile, who is facing plunder and graft charges in connection with the pork barrel scam, was allowed by the Supreme Court to post bail in 2015 for humanitarian reasons.

Aside from her medical reasons, the former PCSO executive argued that she should be granted bail because the Supreme Court has found insufficient evidence to adjudge her guilty of plunder when it junked the case against Arroyo last July.

“As regards the element that the public officer must have amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth worth at least P50,000,000.00, the prosecution adduced no evidence showing that either GMA (Arroyo’s initials) or [former PCSO budget officer Benigno] Aguas or even Uriarte, for that matter, had amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth of any amount,” the SC ruling read.

Since chemotherapy will increase her risk for contracting an infection, Uriarte also asked the court that she be allowed to stay in her Quezon City home for the duration of her medical treatment because her present detention quarters at the National Bureau of Investigation in Manila “will unfortunately not provide the requisite environment” for her to rest and recover.

“That her home is located close to St. Luke’s Medical Center presents another justification for home confinement, as in the unfortunate event that she were to suffer from any complications arising from treatment, she may be more easily rushed to the hospital and her doctors, than if she were to be detained at the NBI,” Uriarte’s lawyers said. —KG, GMA News