The “Kraken” might have been decapitated, but its tentacles still wriggle about.

Dinagat Island Rep. Kaka Bag-ao struck up this imagery as she expressed disappointment over the Supreme Court’s (SC) acquittal of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in connection with her plunder charge.

“It’s disappointing, but not at all surprising. We may have been successful in removing a Chief Justice loyal to Arroyo, but others have remained,” Bag-ao said in a statement Wednesday (july 20).

The “Chief Justice” she was referring to was the late Renato Corona, who was impeached and subsequently convicted in 2012. It was his supposed partiality toward Arroyo that got him in trouble in the first place.

On Tuesday, the SC magistrates voted 11-4 in favor of dropping the plunder charge against incumbent Pampanga 2nd district Rep. Arroyo. The charge had to do with the alleged misuse of Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence funds.

“We have also seen the majority of this Supreme Court unjustly grant the posting of bail for Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, who is also charged with plunder,” noted Bag-ao.

Out of the 11 justices who voted in favor of dismissing the plunder charge due to weak evidence, eight were appointed by Arroyo herself during her tenure as president. These are Justices Presbitero Velasco Jr., Teresita de Castro, Arturo Brion, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Jose Perez and Jose Mendoza.

Another Arroyo appointee, Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, was among the four who dissented.

Arroyo sat as chief executive from 2001 to 2010.