Doctor orders longer hospital stay for Bong Revilla
MANILA, Philippines – The doctor of former Senator Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr ordered a longer confinement for him at the St Luke’s Medical Center.
The Philippine National Police Custodial Center Unit informed the anti-graft court Sandiganbayan on Thursday, November 10, that the security escorts sent to return Revilla back to his cell at Camp Crame did not leave with the senator in tow. Revilla was not cleared to be discharged.
Revilla has been under detention without bail to face a pending plunder case. He is accused of keeping P224 million from his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations, in addition to facing 16 counts of graft resulting from those same PDAF transactions.
On November 5, Revilla complained of a severe migraine. Police custodians brought him to the PNP General Hospital (PNPGH), where testing showed he was suffering from erratic blood pressure.
PNPGH doctors recommended he be taken to the St Luke’s Medical Center-Global City in Taguig, so he could be better looked after, as Revilla vomited twice while in the PNPGH.
Revilla's lawyers on November 8 said they expected his release from the hospital the next day after some additional tests. According to the lawyers, he had to be confined due to an acute migraine headache, tenosynovitis of the right arm, reactive hypertension, esophagitis, and non-erosive gastritis.
The graft court granted the defense's motion to allow Revilla to continue staying in the hospital until he is officially discharged by his attending physician.
Instead of returning to his cell on November 9, however, Revilla was required to undergo a biopsy and “further examination and treatment,” the former senator's attending physician, orthopedic surgeon Rolando Ochoa, told Superintendent Arnel Aplid, chief of the PNP Custodial Center Unit. – Rappler.com
