An outside team of government physicians will get the chance to weigh in on former House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s true medical state after the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division directed that he be examined at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH).
Under the order handed down Friday, September 11, the Leyte lawmaker is to leave Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City on Saturday, September 12, and be brought to the government-run facility in Manila. The court instructed UP-PGH physicians to carry out their own assessment and determine whether keeping Romualdez hospitalized is truly necessary. He is to remain there until the anti-graft justices issue new instructions.
Associate Justice Karl Miranda, who chairs the division, announced the directive on the second day of hearings on Romualdez’s request to keep staying at the private hospital rather than be moved to a jail. According to Rappler, the order tasks the state hospital’s doctors with turning in their findings and recommendation by Sunday, September 13, and appearing in court the following day, Monday, September 14.
Transport arrangements were spelled out as well. The Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, the Philippine National Police, and the Office of the Judiciary Marshals are to work with UP-PGH to move Romualdez by ambulance equipped with the necessary medical gear, Rappler reported.
The examination directive lands squarely in the middle of a dispute over how sick Romualdez actually is. His physicians took the stand Friday to walk the court through his heart, neurological, and psychiatric conditions, and each testified that relocating him carried danger given the strain he was under. Earlier in the week, Assistant Ombudsman Mico Clavano had signaled that prosecutors wanted precisely this kind of neutral check, arguing to Sunstar that a team of government doctors — not a single physician — should judge whether his declared illnesses require confinement or can be handled outside a hospital.
Romualdez has been under hospital arrest since Monday, September 7, when he checked into Cardinal Santos hours after the warrant against him was released. His medical certificate lists a string of ailments, among them hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, unstable angina, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular ischemic disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and primary hypothyroidism, and he underwent angioplasty in October 2024.
The plunder charge that put him in custody stems from the flood-control corruption scandal, with the Ombudsman pegging the alleged kickbacks at P7.44 billion. The Sandiganbayan issued arrest warrants against Romualdez, former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, and two other accused hours after the formal charges were filed, and the court has recommended no bail in the case.
