Zaldy Ampatuan to spend night at PHL Heart Center

(Updated 9:42 p.m.) Maguindanao massacre suspect Zaldy Ampatuan will be confined at the Philippine Heart Center, where he was brought Wednesday noon to undergo a series of checkups, possibly for several days upon the recommendation of doctors. Dr. Danny Kuizon, PHC resident cardiologist, said Ampatuan has to be confined because he was showing "signs of heart failure." "He is showing signs of a failing heart," Kuizon said. "We need to address this problem." Asked what he meant by "heart failure," Kuizon said such condition happens when there is a "lack of blood supply in the heart." Kuizon, however, said Ampatuan's condition has stabilized. Doctors scheduled Ampatuan to undergo blood test on Thursday and possibly angeogram on Friday. "We are not recommending that he be brought back to Bicutan," Kuizon said, adding that Ampatuan would be indefinitely confined at the medical facility.
This, even as the Quezon City court handling the massacre case said it could not yet grant Ampatuan's request for confinement because his camp did not submit original copies of the medical report on his condition. In a ruling released late Wednesday afternoon, Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes of Quezon City Regional Trial Court Branch 221 said her ruling on Ampatuan's request to stay for the night at the PHC would be "held in abeyance." "He is directed to immediately submit an original abstract and submit fully notarized documents identifying the need for his admission at the said hospital," she said in her ruling. Solis-Reyes has allowed Ampatuan to go to a hospital but only for a checkup. Ampatuan was suspended as governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao following the Nov. 23, 2009 massacre that left 57 people dead, including 32 journalists. Ampatuan's lawyer, Howard Calleja, said they would submit on Thursday the necessary documents asked to them by the court. He insisted that they are not violating the court's order. "We're following the order of the RTC, which allows him (Ampatuan) to have a check... the check now necessitates a longer stay because of some findings that have been seen with the governor... so there's no violation at this point," he said in an interview aired on GMA News' "24 Oras." This development, however, did not sit well with the prosecutors. "We will file necessary action," prosecution lawyer Nena Santos told GMA News Online. "It is travesty of the rules and mockery of justice."— KBK, GMA News