Govt asks SC to summon Arroyo doctors to oral arguments

The government has asked the Supreme Court to summon former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's three physicians to testify in the ongoing oral arguments regarding the watch list order issued against her. In a six-page urgent motion for the issuance of subpoena ad testificandum and duces tecum, Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz asked that Mrs. Arroyo's doctors be ordered to testify and bring her latest medical abstract. The doctors that the government wants to testify in the arguments are Dr. Mario Ver, orthopedic surgeon; Dr. Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, Mrs. Arroyo's attending physician; and Dr. Roberto Mirasol. "It is respectfully prayed for the Honorable Court that subpoena ad testificandum and duces tecum be issued ... directing them to appear and testify and bring before the Honorable Court the latest medical abstract, if any, subsequent to those appended to petitioner [Arroyo's] petition dated November 7, 2011, during the next scheduled oral arguments on November 24, 2011, at 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon," said the solicitor general. During the first day of oral arguments for and against the watch list order last Tuesday, a lawyer-doctor from the Arroyo camp explained to the magistrates the need for Mrs. Arroyo to undergo biopsy abroad, saying a biopsy reading may vary from one doctor to another. In his request to the high court, Cadiz explained: "During the said oral arguments, a proposition was presented as to whether the placing of petitioner [Arroyo] under the watch list of the [Department of Justice] and the [Bureau of Immigration] impaired not only her right to travel but her right to life as well." Cadiz stressed the need for the doctors to appear before the high court "in order to once and for all settle the issue as to the medical and physical condition of petitioner, and to help the Honorable Court in the resolution of the present issues in these consolidated cases." The oral arguments stemmed from separate petitions filed by Mrs. Arroyo and her husband, former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, questioning the legality of the watch list orders against them as well as Department Circular No. 41, from which the watch list orders were based. - Mark D. Merueñas/KBK, GMA News