Gov’t won’t block wish of ‘terminally ill’ Andal Sr.

Public prosecutors are not objecting to the request of Andal Ampatuan Sr., the political patriarch accused of masterminding the 2009 Maguindanao massacre, who wishes to stay in a government hospital because of his “terminal” liver cancer.

The state lawyers filed a comment on Monday in the Quezon City Regional Trial Court in response to a motion filed last week by the camp of Ampatuan, who was transferred June 5 from the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP) facility in Bicutan, Taguig City, to the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI).

“For humanitarian considerations, the prosecution concedes that (Ampatuan’s) confinement at the said medical facility be continued until such time that his attending physician makes a recommendation that he is medically fit to return to the BJMP detention facility,” they told the court.

But they asked Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes of Quezon City RTC – Branch 221 to require Ampatuan, through counsel, to submit updated medical bulletins and the results of all laboratory tests conducted during his confinement.

The prosecution’s comment was signed by Assistant State Prosecutors Olivia Torrevillas, Susan Villanueva, Tofel Austria and Clarissa Kuong.

Ampatuan’s lawyer, Salvador Panelo, earlier asked the court to let his 74-year-old client stay at NKTI in Quezon City for “the remaining days of his life,” saying he had been diagnosed with liver cancer that was already at the terminal stage.

In April, Ampatuan’s petition for bail was denied as the court cited strong evidence of his guilt.

But his son and coaccused, Sajid Islam Ampatuan, was granted temporary liberty and was allowed to post a bail bond for P11.6 million.

Ampatuan Sr., a former Maguindanao provincial governor, is one of the principal accused in the Nov. 23, 2009, massacre of 58 people, including 32 media workers.

Considered the single worst media- and election-related killing in the country’s history, it was carried out as the victims were on a convoy organized by the Mangudadatus, another politically entrenched clan then fielding a gubernatorial candidate to challenge the Ampatuans.