Hospital stay doesn’t count as jail time – Sandiganbayan

Although convicted former Rodriguez, Rizal, Mayor Pedro Cuerpo has been hospitalized for the past 10 months, the Sandiganbayan refused to consider him to have served his jail sentence of one to six months for disobeying a court order.

In a five-page resolution, the court’s Special Second Division said it merely stayed the enforcement of Cuerpo’s sentence while he remained confined at the Philippine Heart Center.

Cuerpo was convicted

on Nov. 24, 2012, for the crime of open disobedience, arising from his refusal to heed a regional trial court’s Sept. 17, 2003, order to process the building permit applications of members of the group Samahang Magkakapitbisig. —Vince F. Nonato