Arroyo arrested at hospital bed for vote rigging

MANILA - Philippine police arrested ex-president Gloria Arroyo at her hospital bed on Friday on charges of conspiring with a feared warlord to rig an election, an offence that could lead to life in jail.

The events capped a tumultuous week in Philippine politics that had seen the government block Arroyo, 64, from leaving the country after she arrived at Manila airport wearing a neck brace and saying she needed medical care abroad.

The decision by the Commission on Elections to charge her Friday with rigging the 2007 senatorial elections also marked the high-point in President Benigno Aquino's campaign to hold his predecessor to account for alleged graft.

Arroyo attempts to seek treatment in S'pore

Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will leave Thursday for Singapore to see an endocrinologist, her spokesperson said Wednesday.

Arroyo, now a representative of Pampanga, postponed her trip planned for Wednesday because her "elevated" blood pressure, purportedly brought about by the refusal of the Department of Justice (DOJ) to allow her and her party to leave for abroad on Tuesday night, "has not normalized yet up to this time," Elena Bautista-Horn said.

According to Horn, Arroyo and her party will fly out Thursday for a scheduled checkup at 12:15 p.m. with an endocrinologist in Singapore.

She said Arroyo would be accompanied by her husband, Jose Miguel "Mike" Arroyo, a nurse, a close-in aide, and two members of the couple's respective staffs.

Philippines bans ex-president Arroyo from travel

MANILA - The Philippine government on Tuesday rejected an appeal from former president Gloria Arroyo to travel abroad for medical treatment, saying she may be trying to avoid a graft probe.

Arroyo, 64, had asked the government to allow her to head overseas for expert help on what she said was a rare bone disease, after unsuccessful operations on her spine in Manila this year.