Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s left knee gave out on Wednesday, August 26, just as the detained lawmaker was getting ready to travel to Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan for an imaging appointment on the same joint, according to his office.
Staff told the Inquirer that details remain limited at this stage, adding that the senator’s orthopedic specialist is expected to release a fuller account of his condition once the examination is done. Responding to circulating claims that Estrada had collapsed inside a restroom, his office said only: “He was preparing to go to Cardinal (Santos Medical Center) when his left knee snapped.”
The hospital trip had been cleared earlier in the week. On Monday, the Sandiganbayan’s Fifth Division — the panel hearing the plunder case that has kept him in custody — signed off on a temporary release of up to four hours so he could have his knee X-rayed. That authorization stemmed from a motion Estrada filed on August 18 asking to undergo the procedure at Cardinal Santos.
By 1:35 p.m., his office informed Senate reporters that the senator was already en route to the facility.
Court records show Estrada is being held at the New Quezon City Jail in Payatas in connection with the plunder charges tied to the alleged flood control kickback scheme. In seeking the leave, he cited a worsening flare-up of pain in both knees and a prior diagnosis of osteoarthritis, telling the court he had been dealing with joint effusion even before he was jailed on June 1, 2026. His orthopedic doctor, Dr. Jose Fernando Syquia, had recommended the imaging to gauge whether the condition had deteriorated.
The permission did not come without resistance. As the Manila Times and Business Mirror reported, prosecutors pushed back on the request, proposing that a portable or mobile X-ray unit be brought to the jail instead, or that the exam be carried out at a government hospital rather than a private one. Their objection went further: they argued that the account of Estrada’s knee trouble had been passed along by his wife to the orthopedic doctor and never independently checked by a jail physician, describing it as, at best, secondhand medical history.
The Fifth Division overruled that opposition. Under the terms it set, Estrada was to depart the jail at 11 a.m. and be back no later than 3 p.m., escorted throughout and permitted company only from immediate family, his lawyers, and attending medical staff. The court also directed that he personally cover every expense linked to the outing — hospital charges, professional fees, transportation, and any incidental costs — and instructed the jail warden to file a full compliance report within three days of his return.
