Makati trader in viral video under close watch

The National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) is keeping close tabs on businessman Arnold Padilla, who remained at a private hospital in Bonifacio Global City on Sunday despite his arrest two days earlier on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Padilla ended up in the news as the unwitting star of a viral video that showed him, his live-in partner and bodyguards swearing at and attacking a traffic enforcer who had flagged his car for running a red light. In a fit of rage, Padilla spit and hurled invectives at the enforcer, the police said.

After a raid on Friday on his house in Magallanes Village, one of Makati City’s wealthiest enclaves, led to the discovery of two grenades, a .45-caliber Glock 21 pistol and a Keltec 12 gauge automatic shotgun, he was detained at the NCRPO headquarters in Taguig City before being transferred to St. Luke’s Medical Center when his blood pressure rose to 160/90.

Director Guillermo Eleazar, NCRPO chief, told the Inquirer on Sunday that a doctor from the Philippine National Police, who had been coordinating with a cardiologist at St. Luke’s, said Padilla appeared to have a serious heart problem.

It was also a PNP doctor who recommended the suspect’s transfer to a hospital, Eleazar said.

“His problems may have worsened if he [had] stayed under our custody,” the NCRPO chief said. He added, however, that once doctors at St. Luke’s allow it, Padilla would return to Camp Bagong Diwa.

No special treatment

Eleazar said that Padilla, who had accused the police of planting the grenades in his house, was not receiving any preferential treatment.

Even as the suspect was in the hospital, the NCRPO-Regional Special Operations Unit charged him and his bodyguard, Alfie Ortiz, with violation of Republic Act 10591 (Comprehensive Firearms and Ammunition Regulation Act) and R.A. 9516, which amended the decree on illegal possession of firearms and explosives.

Padilla and Ortiz were referred for inquest proceedings in the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office on Saturday.

The police said the viral video had nothing to do with the raid on Padilla’s home.

Authorities secured two warrants to search Padilla’s home from Executive Judge Elmo Alameda of the Makati Regional Trial Court on Aug. 20, based partly on what Eleazar had said were “at least 30” complaints from his neighbors.