Bong Revilla visits ailing father at Taguig hospital

Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. visits his father, Ramon Revilla Sr., at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City on Tuesday.

Without much fanfare, detained Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. visited his ailing father on Tuesday hours after the Sandiganbayan granted his request for the 5-hour visit.

Reporters staked the detained senator out in the main lobby of the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City where his father, Ramon Revilla Sr., was rushed Saturday due to what his camp said was “metabolic encephalopathy secondary to dehydration and aspiration pneumonia.”

Reporters and cameramen were not allowed inside the hospital, and merely positioned themselves on the side in front of the main building.

A few minutes before 3 p.m., a staff of Senator Revilla, who has been facing charges for his alleged involvement in the pork barrel scam, told the media the senator was already inside the hospital.  Revilla Jr. directly came from Camp Crame, where he has been detained for months, after they were made to pass by the emergency entrance.

READ: Bong Revilla allowed to visit sick father

Past 3 p.m., a perceptively sad Bryan Revilla, a son of the detained senator, faced reporters.

“(My grandfather) was rushed (to the hospital) Saturday morning. They thought he was having a stroke. But now he is kind of OK already but is still under observation (medyo ok ok na pero still under observation),” he said.

He refused to provide reporters more details about his grandfather’s condition, saying he was not a doctor.

Pressed for more information, though, the younger Revilla said his grandfather was “conscious,” “can be talked to,” and “can recognize his visitors.”

He said the Revilla patriarch was in a “private room.”

“I guess you have to wait for the medical update … The fact that my grandfather was in the (intensive care unit) and is not in a stable condition, I think that should be life-threatening enough. And he’s already 88 years old. We know it’s kind of a delicate matter if he gets sick at that age,” he said when told about the pronouncements of their lawyers in the Sandiganbayan early in the day that Revilla Sr.’s condition was life-threatening.

He said when his grandfather heard the news the senator had been allowed to visit him, “he (my grandfather) was excited.”

“He was kind of happy, he would smile a bit. Because for the past few days, he had not been eating. It shows that his weight kind of fell. But since he saw my father, it was OK,” the young Revilla recounted.

He described as “very heartfelt moment” the instance the senator saw the Revilla patriarch.

“It kind of pulls your heart strings and gives you a heavy heart because it had been a long time since my father had seen my grandfather,” he said, noting that the two (his father and grandfather) exchanged pleasantries (“It’s more of nagkakamustahan silang dalawa“).

Asked if the senator, who had been allowed by the antigraft court a furlough of five hours for this day, would ask for an extension, he said “I don’t know.”

“But with regards (sic) to my grandfather’s condition we would want for everybody to spend as much time as we can (with him),” the young Revilla said. SFM