Ampatuan Sr. ailment ‘terminal’ as death rumors fly

Andal Ampatuan Sr., a primary suspect in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, remains confined at a government hospital for liver cancer, which his lawyer claimed to be “terminal.”

An official on Monday sought to dispel rumors that the former Maguindanao provincial governor had died. Insp. Aris Villaester, spokesman of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP), said the 74-year-old patriarch of the powerful political clan was still under guard at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) in Quezon City.

On June 5, Senior Insp. Jaime Claveria Jr., the BJMP physician at the Quezon City Jail annex in Taguig City, recommended that Ampatuan be brought to NKTI due to “difficulty of breathing” and “an increase in abdominal girth.”

Ampatuan was later found to be suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma, a form of liver cancer, and liver cirrhosis.

On June 9, his lawyer, Salvador Panelo, asked the Quezon City court to let his client stay at NKTI “until the remaining days of his life,” saying his illness was irreversible and that his family had been advised by a doctor that “the life of the accused is on a terminal stage.”

Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes has yet to rule on Panelo’s motion.—Jaymee T. Gamil