Arroyo cancels public engagements to be with hubby

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has canceled all her public engagements for the meantime and put on hold her campaign for Congress to be with her husband, Jose Miguel “Mike" Arroyo, who remains confined at newly opened St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City. Deputy presidential spokesman Gary Olivar on Sunday said there is no word yet when the President would resume her public engagements, including her campaign for congresswoman of Pampanga’s second district. “Obviously, ‘yung kanyang mga public engagement, lalo na iyung kanyang pangangampanya, naka-hold muna iyan sapagkat minamabuti ng Pangulo na bantayang mabuti ang kanyang maybahay sa St. Luke's," Olivar said in an interview over Radyo ng Bayan. (The President saw it fit to cancel all her public engagements and put on hold her campaign for a congressional seat in Pampanga to be with her husband in St. Luke’s.)

“But she continues to run the government through the Cabinet members through the executive branch, by telephone, by personal visits and meetings," he added. Some of President Arroyo’s appointments have been delegated to Vice President Noli de Castro, Olivar said. She has also set up a “satellite office" in St. Luke’s to attend to some of the country’s needs. Olivar said the Arroyo family is waiting for new medical bulletins from Mr. Arroyo’s attending physicians, including if he would be fit to travel to Baguio City for the First Family’s annual Holy Week vacation. Mr. Arroyo was rushed to the hospital last Thursday due to severe back pains and high blood pressure which doctors later diagnosed as “re-dissection of the thoracic aorta" similar to the dissecting aneurism he suffered in April, 2007 A report over radio dzBB Sunday night said St. Luke’s is scheduled to release a medical bulletin on Monday. Olivar said the First Gentleman’s condition continues to improve daily, and that he has started to receive “bedside rehabilitation" and medication. - KBK, GMANews.TV