Police assistance sought for doctors summoned to court

MANILA, Philippines—The Pasay City court hearing the electoral sabotage case against Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has sought the assistance of the police for the security of her attending physician, who is expected to disclose the former President’s state of health on Thursday.

Court sheriff Rodelio Buenviaje told reporters he brought the matter up with the local police after Arroyo’s doctors—attending physician Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, orthopedic surgeon Mario Ver and endocrinologist Roberto Mirasol—were mobbed by the media last week.

“We already asked for police assistance,” Buenviaje said on Wednesday after serving Cervantes another set of summonses at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City. “The last time they appeared in court, they encountered so much hardships.”

The doctors were apparently overwhelmed last week when members of the media swarmed on them as they made their way out of the Pasay City Hall of Justice, the sheriff said, adding that the medical team had a difficult time entering and leaving the courtroom.

He requested the media to allow witnesses some space to move around in future hearings.

Cervantes was called back to the witness stand after Arroyo’s lawyers requested that their client be allowed to stay in the hospital for at least five days more. The defense panel claimed that Arroyo, who has a lingering degenerative bone disorder, developed colitis last week.

On Wednesday, the former President’s spokesperson, Elena Bautista Horn, released what she said was a medical bulletin issued by Cervantes. It detailed how Arroyo contracted colitis, an inflammation of the  colon, and what kind of treatment she was receiving.

Barring any legal maneuvers by the defense, Cervantes could provide the court another perspective on the exact medical state of Arroyo.

Last week, defense lawyers abandoned their plea to have Arroyo detained indefinitely at the hospital and asked instead that she be held under house arrest at her residence in the exclusive La Vista Subdivision in Quezon City.

Arroyo’s legal team insisted then that the former President’s doctors did not need to take the stand and disclose her present condition, arguing that it was irrelevant at that point.

But Judge Jesus Mupas ordered Ver to testify on his observations on Arroyo. The doctor said the former president was “fit” to leave the hospital, “as far as my subspecialty was concerned,” and her rehabilitation could be continued as an “outpatient.”

With the disclosure, prosecutors sought Arroyo’s “immediate” detention at a government facility “preferably the Southern Police District.”

On Monday, Mupas and some of his staff inspected three government hospitals and the newly refurbished room at the SPD.

The former President and now Pampanga representative is accused of ordering a  “12-0” victory for administration senatorial bets in Maguindanao during the 2007 midterm elections. Her co-accused are former Maguindanao governor Andal Ampatuan Sr. and election supervisor Lintang Bedol.