SHE WON’T LEAVE Vice President Sara Duterte accompanies her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez as they leave St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City on Saturday, in a tense episode in the standoff that started Friday night between Duterte and the House leaders who earlier ordered Lopez detained. —Niño Jesus Orbeta
Zuleika Lopez, the chief of staff and longtime aide of Vice President Sara Duterte, made trips to two hospitals on Saturday after experiencing panic attacks when authorities attempted to serve an order from a House panel to transfer her to the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong City.
Lopez told reporters in a hastily called online press conference that she was suffering from her chronic back pain and started fearing for her life close to midnight on Friday, when nine House security officers and police barged into her detention cell at the House where they were supposed to read to her the transfer order.
The order came from the committee on good government and public accountability, which has been investigating Duterte’s alleged misuse of P612.5 million in confidential funds from 2022 to 2023.
READ: Sara Duterte visits detained chief of staff, spends night at House
The panel cited Lopez in contempt during its hearing on Wednesday, saying that she was obstructing its investigation and being evasive in her answers.
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The transfer order followed the Vice President’s refusal to leave the House premises, saying she wanted to keep Lopez company during her detention. Duterte then occupied the office of her brother, Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte starting Thursday night.
Lopez, emotional and tearful, said she appeared at the panel hearing “in good faith” and insisted that she answered all the questions raised by lawmakers regarding what she knew about the use of the confidential funds of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
“I think I was very respectful in answering all their questions to the very best of my ability,” she said.
Seeing that Lopez was not feeling well as she narrated her experience, Duterte took over the briefing and let Lopez rest as she tried to recover from her panic attack and waited for her doctor.
It was during this expletive-laden press conference that Duterte disclosed that she had contracted an assassin to kill President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and the President’s cousin, Speaker Martin Romualdez if an alleged plot to kill her succeeds.
That disclosure triggered heightened security for the President and his family, according to the Presidential Communications Office, which considered it a national security threat.
A video camera of Duterte’s chief media relations officer later showed an ambulance outside the North Wing Gate of the House of Representatives around 3 a.m.
Duterte became infuriated when she found out that Philippine National Police chief Gen. Rommel Francisco Marbil was headed to the House on three vehicles.
She questioned why Marbil was allowed to enter the Batasan complex while the ambulance and Lopez’s doctors had to wait outside the House.
“They won’t allow the doctor and the ambulance to enter. Then here goes Marbil who has nothing to do with this thing here now,” Duterte said.
After an hour, the North Wing gate opened, allowing the ambulance to take Lopez and Duterte to Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).
At VMMC, a calmer Duterte told and told reporters that “a lot of blood” was taken from Lopez for tests.
She said that while they were still at the House, no one had offered to help them medically. “We didn’t know what to do … Well, I have some background on health care but at that point, I didn’t know what to do,” she said.
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Duterte added that Lopez kept throwing up while they were still at the House detention center.
“They are only mad at me, right? I don’t think they are angry at Undersecretary Lopez,” she said.
After a few hours, Lopez was transferred to St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City where two of Duterte’s closest legislative allies, Sen. Ronald de la Rosa and Sagip Rep. Rodante Marcoleta, visited her and Lopez.
Later in the day, Police Brig. Gen. Nicolas Torre III, the chief of the PNP’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group who led the efforts to arrest Pastor Apollo Quiboloy in Davao City, went to the hospital to serve a new order to move Lopez back to VMMC.
In a video clip shared by the OVP to reporters, Torre was seen talking with Duterte at the front door of Lopez’s room.
She requested Torre to allow members of the media, particularly television cameramen, into the room to record the service of the House order.
However, the hospital management refused. Torre suggested not to cover the view of the cameras shooting from a distance.
One video showed Lopez in a wheelchair tucked in a hospital blanket, crying and embracing Duterte while being consoled by Dela Rosa in the room.
“Where are they taking me?” Lopez asked, when she was told about the presence of Torre, who later read the order, which contains instructions from both the House and the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Trying to calm Lopez, who was worried about being brought to the women’s correctional facility, Torre assured her “that’s all done now.”
The order from Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla directs the “untethered access” of Lopez’s attending physicians and that Dela Rosa, Sen. Imee Marcos and Duterte be allowed to accompany her.
“Ma’am, that’s assured,” Torre told the still emotional Lopez.
“I don’t believe you! That’s what they told me in the House,” she said in response.
Torre also told Lopez that Duterte would personally join her in the vehicle that would transport her back to VMMC.
“The VP and I won’t leave you,” Torre said.
“That’s sure, isn’t it, Nick? Promise?” Dela Rosa said.
“Yes, that’s sure,” Torre said.
Lopez was back in VMMC on Saturday afternoon. It was unclear, however, how long she would remain there.
House Sergeant-at-Arms Napoleon Taas said that what happened to Lopez stemmed from Duterte’s “repeated and deliberate breaches of security guidelines” and “alarming acts of defiance, severely undermining the authority of the House and disrupting its operations.”
When she took on the role of Lopez’s legal counsel, Duterte also obstructed the transfer of her chief of staff to the correctional institution, including “physically intervening” to prevent the service of the order and “bringing in an excessive and unauthorized armed presence into the complex,” jeopardizing House security, Taas said.
Good government panel chair Manila Rep. Joel Chua said that the order was based on a unanimous vote during a special meeting on Friday, where they cited the vice president’s “alarming and unprecedented actions” of defying House rules by refusing to leave the premises.
“We have decided to transfer Lopez to a facility that has the capacity and ability to secure (the vice president). If she stays inside the Batasan, our own security would have been undermined,” Chua said.