Zaldy Ampatuan. AFP FILE PHOTO
Hospital arrest has been recommended for Zaldy Ampatuan, the former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) who claimed willingness to become a state witness to pin his coaccused father and brother to the 2009 Maguindanao massacre.
The recommendation was made by Chief Inspector Agnes Aglipay, the head of the Health Service Unit of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology-National Capital Region.
Aglipay’s recommendation was forwarded by Senior Inspector Bernardino Edgar Camus, the new officer in charge of the Quezon City Jail Annex, to Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Regional Trial Court Branch 221 on Wednesday afternoon, a court staff member said.
In the July 12 communication to the court, Aglipay said Ampatuan, 43, had to undergo a medical examination in “a hospital setting.”
She said Ampatuan’s private doctors had found out that he had “coronary heart disease and poorly controlled diabetes mellitus that needs immediate evaluation and prompt treatment.”
“The accused had occasional episodes of shortness of breath that were temporarily relieved by oxygen installation and nebulation,” Aglipay said.
Attached to Camus’ letter to Judge Reyes were the recommendations of Ampatuan’s private doctors.
2009 consultation
One of them, Dr. Reynaldo Rosales, Ampatuan’s endocrinologist at St. Luke’s Medical Center-Global City, said the ex-governor had been known to be a diabetic since 2001 and “was started on hypoglycemic agents and at present on combination oral and insulin therapy.”
“At present, he complains of frequent thirst and urination at least four to five times at night, blurring of vision, lower extremity pain and numbness,” Rosales said.
But it appeared in the recommendation that Ampatuan’s last consultation with Rosales was in 2009.
Dr. Maita Senadrin, Ampatuan’s cardiologist, said he had been hypertensive for 10 years and was “also diagnosed to have fatty liver.”
Senadrin also described her patient as “a previous smoker, with a family history of parents having diabetes and hypertension.”
She said he was diagnosed as a child “to have congenital heart diseases, but was asymptomatic in his 20s.”
She recommended that Ampatuan undergo the following tests: 12-lead ECG, two-dimensional echocardiography, 24-hour Holter monitoring, carotid duplex scan, peripheral arterial and venous duplex scan, endothelial function test, and complete blood chemistry including high-sensitivity C-reactive protein and myocardial perfusion imaging.
Not least guilty
Reacting to Justice Secretary Leila de Lima’s statement on the possibility of Ampatuan as a state witness in a possible election sabotage case against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, lawmakers pointed out that he was directly involved in the manipulation of election results in Maguindanao province, over which his clan had ruled with an iron fist.
House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said only the least guilty should be considered as a state witness, and “never the one who is actually guilty of committing a crime.”
Bayan Muna Representative Teodoro Casiño said Ampatuan could be a state witness in an election fraud case only if he would identify other persons “more guilty than he, specifically those who initiated and financed these operations.”
Cagayan de Oro Representative Rufus Rodriguez said that more than Ampatuan, his henchman, former election officer Lintang Bedol, was qualified to be a state witness considering that the latter was “a mere cog” in the elections and was taking orders from powerful people in Maguindanao.
Dasmariñas City Representative Elpidio Barzaga Jr. said that it had to be determined whether Bedol was taking orders to manipulate election results directly from the Ampatuans or his bosses at the Commission on Elections.
Barzaga said it would be logical to conclude that Ampatuan and Bedol were linked because the latter surfaced immediately after Ampatuan claimed in an interview that the latter would come out to corroborate his statements.
Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay said that in assessing whether Ampatuan was eligible as a state witness, the government should act on his signed affidavits instead of depending on his interviews with the media and draft statements.
“The government should be careful in reviewing the facts before making a decision,” she said.
Surprised lawyers
Two of Ampatuan’s lawyers were surprised at his appearance on television and his exposés against Arroyo and his own family members.
Sonny Davila told the Inquirer by phone that he and lead defense counsel Redemberto Villanueva had no prior knowledge that their client would issue explosive statements on the Maguindanao massacre and other cases.
Davila said he had drafted Zaldy’s not guilty plea on the Maguindanao massacre case when the latter came out on TV and issued unsigned media statements.
During the TV interview, only defense counsel Howard Calleja was seen sitting beside the former governor.
Davila also said there was nothing in the defense file about Ampatuan’s reported desire to become a state witness.
August 2010 statement
A signed one-page statement that Ampatuan issued in August 2010, a copy of which the Inquirer had obtained, hinted that he was even then already thinking of speaking to reporters.
“To me, the only thing so important is my faith and my vindication for my children who are too young to understand and explain my fate, our fate, to their friends and schoolmates,” he said in the statement.
Ampatuan also claimed innocence, saying he had always told his visitors at his detention cell in General Santos City that he could “not allow that gruesome massacre to happen, if I had an iota of knowledge that it could happen.”
“I told them that I can look straight in their eyes in saying that I had no knowledge of it, until it happened,” he said, adding that somebody phoned him and told him about it while he was having a meeting in Malacañang with then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Nov. 23, 2009.
He named former Justice Secretaries Alberto Agra and Raul Gonzalez as among those present at the meeting aimed at addressing disputes between Sulu leaders. With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan Jr. in Manila; Nash B. Maulana and Charlie C. Señase, Inquirer Mindanao