MAURO GIA SAMONTE
Rodrigo Roa Duterte, former mayor of Davao City, took his oath of office as President of the Republic of the Philippines in the Rizal Ceremonial Hall of Malacañang Palace at noon of June 30, 2016. Nineteen days after the event, former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, incarcerated at the Veterans Memorial Hospital for plunder charges at the Sandiganbayan for alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds, was acquitted of those charges by the Supreme Court, voting 11-4. The SC ruling thus cleared the way for the former president’s ultimate release from the hospital, where she had been detained since 2012.