THE Court of Appeals has denied the bid of former ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan to be taken out of the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa City, where he is serving life after being convicted of involvement in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre case, due to the threat posed by COVID-19.
In a decision promulgated last July 4, the CA Special Division of Five said Ampatuan’s petition questioning the July 20, 2020 ruling of Quezon City RTC Branch 221 Judge Jocelyn Solis Reyes denying his bid to be taken out of the national penitentiary on humanitarian concerns due to the COVID-19 threat has become moot given the lower COVID infections in the country.
“Today, the COVID-19 infections in the entire country have gone down, and the NCR is no longer on GCQ but is presently on Alert Level 1, as officially announced by the President of the Philippines last April 8, 2022,” the SC ruling said.
Alert Level 1 refers to areas wherein case transmission of the virus is low and decreasing and total bed utilization rate and intensive care utilization rate is low.
In his plea, the former ARMM governor asked that he be transferred to a hospital or medical facility which is sufficiently suitable and equipped to protect him from actual or threatened COVID-19 infection until the Philippines “shall have equipped itself with the ability to significantly mitigate, if not completely prevent, transmission of COVID-19, and to be permitted to receive pneumococcal and flu vaccine shots.”
The decision was penned by Associate Justice Angelene Mary Quimpo-Sale, with Associate Justices Ramon Cruz, Mary Christine Azcarraga Jacob, Geraldine Fiel-Macaraig and Tita Marilyn Payoyo-Villordon concurring.
