Zaldy Ampatuan. AFP FILE PHOTO
Zaldy Ampatuan was nursing a puncture in his right groin as a result of an angiogram, and his lawyers tried to have him stay for six hours more at Philippine Heart Center. But they could not pull it off.
The lawyers on Friday failed to comply with a supposed requirement that they personally give the other parties in the Maguindanao massacre case copies of their urgent motion for Ampatuan’s extended stay at the Quezon City hospital.
As a result, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 did not rule on their motion, and the former governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and one of the principal accused in the 2009 massacre was taken back to Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan, Taguig City.
The convoy of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) carrying Ampatuan left the hospital at 12:30 p.m., half an hour past the deadline earlier ordered by the judge.
Two ambulances and four other BJMP vehicles carrying personnel with high-powered firearms made up the convoy. It exited the hospital the same way it entered when Ampatuan was brought there on Wednesday afternoon—through the gate on Matalino Street.
The convoy arrived at the Quezon City Jail Annex in Camp Bagong Diwa at past 1 p.m.
Ampatuan was to be taken to the jail facility’s newly built infirmary, where medical personnel of the BJMP were to monitor his condition until his transfer to his detention cell.
Chief Insp. Edgar Camus, the officer in charge of the Quezon City Jail Annex, said that without a new court order, Ampatuan would be brought back to his cell.
Angiogram result
According to a court staff member, Ampatuan’s lawyer Firdausi Abbas appeared at around 9 a.m. Friday to file an urgent motion for extension which he tried to set for a hearing at 10 a.m.
The other parties were supposed to have been furnished copies of the motion by registered mail. But the clerk of court said the other parties should be served the copies by 12 noon, the staff member said.
Ampatuan’s camp was said to have submitted a copy of the motion to the Department of Justice at noon.
The court noted a manifestation filed by another Ampatuan lawyer, Howard Calleja, which included a letter from the ex-governor’s physician
In the letter, which Calleja used as basis for the motion for an extension of Ampatuan’s hospital stay, Dr. Danny Kuizon reported to the court the findings of the angiogram:
“He has insignificant coronary artery disease and a low flow from the angiogram indicating small vessel disease of the vascular bed and possibly due to his diabetes mellitus that has been poorly controlled for several months now.”
How it’s done
An angiogram is an X-ray test that uses a special dye and camera to take photos of the blood flow in an artery or a vein.
A thin tube (catheter) is placed into a blood vessel through a puncture in the groin.
The catheter is guided to the area to be studied, and then an iodine dye is injected into the vessel to make the area show clearly on the X-ray pictures. This method is known as conventional or catheter angiogram.
In a chance interview with reporters, Kuizon said the angiogram was performed from 7:20 to 7:32 Friday morning.
Government doctor
He said that as a matter of protocol after the procedure, the patient would be required to stay in bed for six hours with a sand bag on his right groin to prevent bleeding from the puncture site.
In Malacañang, President Aquino’s spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said Judge Reyes should order that Ampatuan be also examined by a government doctor the next time he seeks medical treatment in a hospital.
“Doctors make more definitive findings. So it’s more quantitative rather than qualitative…. The doctors can immediately decide. A government doctor and a private doctor can immediately agree,” Lacierda said at yesterday’s news briefing.
“And based on the findings, they can issue a common conclusion. Maybe we should ask the judge the next time around if there is a similar request from Zaldy Ampatuan’s camp that she issue an order [for a government doctor to also check on the accused],” he said.
Lacierda pushed for the release of the results of the medical examination that caused Ampatuan’s private doctor to have him confined at Philippine Heart Center.
“Just so there will no longer be any [question] as to whether they are being coddled,” Lacierda said.
“If the judge allows the release of the findings of his medical test, they would know if there was indeed a necessity for Zaldy Ampatuan to undergo an angiogram since initial tests have been done,” he said.
Lacierda also said there was a need to clarify reports that Ampatuan’s physician was a friend of Calleja’s father.
Royal treatment
On the phone with the Inquirer, lawyer Raul Lambino, now serving as a spokesperson of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, assailed the “royal treatment” extended by Cabinet members to an “accused mass murderer,” which, he said, proved that a secret deal had been forged between Malacañang and Ampatuan.
“They say one thing but do another in a not too subtle way. Their actions are loud enough and speak for themselves. No amount of conflicting statements from the Palace’s henchmen can overturn the obvious truth,” Lambino said.
Lambino noted that Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, who has jurisdiction over the BJMP, had given Ampatuan “all the leeway and more” that a prisoner could squeeze from the administration.
“Robredo is allowing Ampatuan to condition the minds of the public that his life is at risk, which would justify any government move [in his favor]. For what? For testimony that he can renege on any time he wants to?” Lambino said.
He said that while both Robredo and Lacierda had disavowed any deal with Ampatuan, they had continued to defend the ex-governor in media interviews.
“[They] are more visible than Ampatuan’s lawyers in defending Ampatuan, which makes a lot of people wonder who they are really representing,” he said.
Lambino also said that Robredo and Lacierda’s actions reflected the Aquino administration’s “obsession” to pin Arroyo to “so-called election irregularities in addition to their unsubstantiated allegations of corruption.”
“Were it not for the mounting pressure from the awakening public and the timely pronouncements from us in exposing their scheme, Ampatuan will be readily called as a state witness and accorded regal treatment in exchange for his statements linking [Arroyo] to whatever crimes they can think about,” Lambino said.
Satisfactory explanation
But Lacierda said Robredo was satisfied with the explanation of Ampatuan’s jail guards on how the accused remained at the hospital despite his pass being only for a checkup.
He said the jail guards tried to reach Judge Reyes until 10 p.m. on Wednesday to seek her guidance regarding Ampatuan, who was then supposedly strapped to a number of hospital equipment on his doctor’s orders.
Lacierda said that on Thursday, Robredo ordered that Ampatuan be taken back to Camp Bagong Diwa unless the judge issued an order to the contrary.
He said Ampatuan was already in the ambulance when Reyes issued an order that the ex-governor could stay in the hospital until Friday noon.
“Secretary Robredo is satisfied with the explanation. They tried until 10, past office hours. We were trying to look for the judge two nights ago,” Lacierda said, adding:
“And since there were contraptions on the body of Mr. Zaldy Ampatuan, and there was also an order from the doctor to have him confined, and not being able to secure guidance from the judge, [the jail guards] had to defer to the doctor’s orders.” With reports from Miko Morelos, Gil C. Cabacungan Jr., Norman Bordadora and Inquirer Research