Court allows dying Ampatuan patriarch to stay at hospital

The Quezon City court handling the Maguindanao massacre has granted the plea of primary accused Andal Ampatuan Sr., 74, to remain confined at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) due to his advanced liver cancer.

In a two-page order issued on Wednesday, Quezon city Regional Trial Court Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes allowed the continued confinement, “taking into consideration the serious medical condition of the accused,” and given that even the prosecution panel “raised no objection” to it.

The judge cited a June 26 medical certificate issued by Ampatuan’s attending physician at the NKTI, Jade Jamias, stating that Ampatuan has “advanced liver cancer with signs of decompensation” and that “prognosis is currently dim as pharmacologic intervention is limited.” Jamias, in the handwritten medical certificate, also said “life expectancy for such [a] case is usually three to six months, but may be shorter if the liver function will continuously and progressively deteriorate.”

In a two-page urgent motion filed last June 9, defense lawyer Salvador Panelo asked Solis-Reyes to order Ampatuan’s continued confinement at NKTI “until the remaining days of his life.” “The said accused is suffering from an irreversible illness—and his family has been advised by Dr. Jamias that the life of the accused is on a terminal stage,” Panelo said.

Ampatuan has been confined at the NKTI since June 5, on the recommendation of the physician of the Quezon city jail annex in Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan, Taguig, where respondents in the Maguindanao Massacre are being detained.

Solis-Reyes, in her order on Wednesday, directed the jail warden of the Quezon City jail annex to “ensure strict security measures” at the NKTI during the entire period of Ampatuan’s confinement. The BJMP spokesperson, Insp. Aris Villaester, said they have deployed enough personnel as “closed-in” security for Ampatuan and to secure the outer perimeter of the NKTI.

Panelo was also directed to submit to the court the results of all medical examinations conducted on Ampatuan during his confinement, at the latest two days after the conduct of the tests. Meanwhile, in a separate three-page order issued on Wednesday, Solis-Reyes granted the motion of an Ampatuan son and also his co-accused, Zaldy, to be allowed to undergo a “myocardial imaging test” at the Philippine Heart Center on Thursday (July 2), and visit Ampatuan at the NKTI afterward. Both hospitals are located on East Avenue in Quezon City.

Last June 22, Zaldy was allowed by the court to undergo laboratory tests at the Philippine Heart Center, after weeks of suffering chest pains, shortness of breath, and extreme exhaustion at the Quezon City jail annex. Zaldy was previously confined in the hospital in 2011.

Despite the fact that prosecution lawyers earlier opposed Zaldy’s visit to his father, Solis-Reyes allowed it “for humanitarian reasons,” again citing Jamias’ assessment of the Ampatuan patriarch’s condition. The judge, however, only allowed Zaldy up to two hours to visit his father, after which, he will be immediately brought back to the Quezon city jail annex.

Meanwhile, two other motions to visit Ampatuan in the hospital, filed by his co-accused relatives—his son Andal Jr. and grandson Anwar Sajid, who are also detained at the Quezon city jail annex—have not been resolved. Members of the Ampatuan clan stand accused of masterminding the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre of 58 people in Ampatuan town, Maguindanao, by more than a hundred militia men.

(With a report from Rose Barroga, trainee)