Lawyer wants more tests on Andal Ampatuan Sr.

MANILA, Philipppines—Let Andal Ampatuan Sr. undergo a CT scan before he is brought back to jail  to determine whether he has cancer of the lungs or some other ailment, Ampatuan lawyer Philip Sigfrid Fortun has asked a Quezon City court.

In a comment filed on Monday before Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Quezon City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 221, Fortun asked the court to order jail officials to bring his client to a government hospital for a CT scan as recommended by Dr. Bella Siasoco of the Philippine General Hospital.

Siasoco, chief of the pulmonary medicine section, recommended that a chest CT scan be done on Ampatuan to complement the findings of a chest X-ray.  She noted, however, that the elderly patriarch’s pulmonary state was not critical or life-threatening and that he was ready to be weaned from the mechanical ventilator which helps him breathe. He may also be discharged from the hospital, the doctor said.

Fortun said he did not question Siasoco’s findings, but “for expediency, (Ampatuan’s) CT scan should be done before his return to the Quezon City Jail Annex in Camp Bagong Diwa.”

Ampatuan is among the 196 accused in the killing of 57 people, including lawyers, women and journalists, on Nov. 23, 2009, in what has become known as the Maguindanao massacre.

Meanwhile, the Pasay City RTC has again deferred to next week the arraignment of Ampatuan Sr. as he remained confined at a military hospital.

RTC Branch 112 spokesperson Felda Domingo said Judge Jesus Mupas had rescheduled Ampatuan’s arraignment to March 26, which coincides with the arraignment of former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos Sr., who is being tried for a separate electoral sabotage case.

Domingo said Mupas had ordered Ampatuan’s lawyer, Albert Angeles, to present to the court a medical abstract from his client’s doctors at V. Luna Medical Center to prove that the former Maguindanao governor was indisposed on Monday.

She said that Ampatuan’s counsel merely relied on a medical bulletin released by his client’s custodians at the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology.

Ampatuan vomited blood earlier this month while in detention at the Quezon City Jail Annex in Taguig City, prompting jail guards to bring him to a hospital for immediate treatment. He was later moved to V. Luna Medical Center, where doctors diagnosed him as suffering from a liver disease and pneumonia. With a report from Miko Morelos