UERM: No record of Mercado as patient

Former Vice mayor of Makati Ernesto Mercado. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The admission department of the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay (UERM) Memorial Medical Center on Aurora Boulevard in Quezon City has no record of confinement of a certain Ernesto Salvador Mercado on Oct. 1-4.

“We have no records of a patient of that name in our system,” UERM hospital admission employee told the Inquirer on Thursday.

The UERM employee, who declined to be identified, said an initial check with the hospital’s closed-circuit television security camera indicated that no politician visited the hospital on those dates.

“Our security personnel checked our footage and no politician arrived on those days,” the hospital employee said.

Mercado, who was contacted by the Inquirer, denied he had been hospitalized.

“I was not confined in any hospital anywhere in the Philippines especially on those dates,” Mercado told the Inquirer.

“My challenge to them still stands that if they could show proof that I was confined in any hospital anywhere in the country on the dates they mentioned, I will volunteer to take back all my statements against the Vice President,” he said.

He said that his full name was Ernesto Salvador Mercado and that he was born on April 28, 1952.

At the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee on Thursday, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) interim president, and JV Bautista, UNA interim secretary general, appeared to present evidence to dispute Mercado’s statement that he had not been hospitalized. UNA is Binay’s political party.

Mercado earlier denied being hospitalized to dispute allegations that Interior Secretary Mar Roxas of the ruling Liberal Party had visited him at the hospital when he was sick.

The UNA officials said an Ernesto Mercado was treated at UERM Memorial Medical Center for heart ailment on Oct. 1 and Oct. 4, contrary to Mercado’s statement.

They wanted Mercado’s testimonies stricken off the records of the subcommittee, citing his earlier statement that he would take back all his statements if Binay’s camp can show proof of his hospitalization.

Tiangco and Bautista were told to leave as they were not invited to the hearing.