Sandiganbayan suspends Gloria from Congress

The Sandiganbayan’s 4th Division has ordered former president and current Pampanga 2nd District Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo suspended from Congress.

In the past, Arroyo’s legal team had asked the Sandiganbayan 4th Division to dismiss the graft case filed against her and three other people in connection with the junked $329-million National Broadband Network project proposed by China’s ZTE Corp.

Her lawyers had claimed that the prosecution made an adverse admission that clears Arroyo.

Defense lawyers Jose Flaminiano, J. Alberto Flaminiano, Laurence Hector B. Arroyo and Jose Aurelio B. Alban said the Sandiganbayan should recall its January 7, 2013 resolution that denied her motion to quash along with similar pleadings filed by her husband former first gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, former Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza and former Commission on Elections chairman Benjamin Abalos Sr.