Suspect in enforcer’s mauling moved to Camp Crame

NO VIP TREATMENT Suspect Arnold Padilla has been moved to Camp Crame General Hospital where he won’t get special treatment. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

Businessman Arnold Padilla, who gained notoriety after he was seen mauling a traffic enforcer in a viral video, was transferred to Camp Crame General Hospital on Sunday after spending more than a week in a private hospital at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig.

Padilla was arrested on Aug. 24 after the police raided his house in the affluent Magallanes Village, Makati City, and found two grenades, a .45-caliber Glock 21 pistol and a Kel-Tec 12 gauge automatic shotgun. He was taken to St. Luke’s Medical Center, however, after his blood pressure shot up.

Director Guillermo Eleazar, National Capital Region Police Office (NCRPO) chief, told the Inquirer that even though doctors had said Padilla had a heart problem, an angiogram—an X-ray procedure that looks at blood vessels in the heart — came back clear.

After doctors at St. Luke’s said Padilla could be medically discharged on Sunday, the police prepared for his transfer to the NCRPO custodial facility. However, his blood pressure shot up again, prompting his transfer to Camp Crame.

“He wanted to be readmitted to St. Luke’s, but we said no,” Eleazar said. “Once his blood pressure normalizes though, we will jail him.”

Doctor’s claim
He added that as Padilla was being discharged, one of his private doctors claimed that the suspect was also suffering from sleep apnea and needed to be checked.

Eleazar said that there was even a time last week that he discovered Padilla had been refusing to take medication for his blood pressure. Once he was convinced to drink his medicine, his condition normalized.

Padilla and his bodyguard, Alfie Ortiz, were charged in the Makati City Prosecutor’s Office last week for illegal possession of firearms and explosives. The police had secured two warrants to search his home based partly on what they claimed were several complaints from neighbors.