The physician listed as the admitting doctor of former House Speaker and Leyte 1st District Representative Martin Romualdez told the Sandiganbayan on Thursday, September 10, that he never personally examined the lawmaker after two other doctors barred him from entering his room at Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City.
Dr. Kurt Allen Sibayan made the admission while testifying during the hearing on Romualdez’s request to remain confined at the hospital.
Sibayan said Dr. Rosalio Torres and Romualdez’s cardiologist, Dr. Rody Sy, prevented him from entering the patient’s room.
Associate Justice Moreno asked Sibayan:
“So you never saw the accused?”
“No, your honor!” Sibayan answered.
Sibayan said it was Sy who told him that Romualdez had been experiencing chest pain. However, when the court asked whether the condition constituted an emergency, Sibayan said it did not.
The court also questioned whether it was normal for an admitting physician to be prevented from personally checking a patient. Sibayan said such an arrangement was not standard practice.
“Not the usual,” he told the anti-graft court.
Sibayan further testified that Torres directed him to prepare Romualdez’s medical abstract, with the information in the document supplied by Torres.
When prosecutors asked whether he signed the medical abstract despite not personally seeing Romualdez, Sibayan answered:
“Yes.”
Torres, a hematologist and one of Romualdez’s attending physicians, also took the witness stand.
He said a member of Romualdez’s staff initially contacted him in July regarding an executive medical checkup. Before Romualdez was confined, Torres said he received another call from the former House leader’s staff reporting that Romualdez was experiencing “chest discomfort” at around 9 to 10 a.m.
Torres said he recommended that Romualdez be admitted to the hospital. Hospital records, however, showed that the actual admission took place at around 4 p.m. that day.
According to Torres, Romualdez requires “active medical treatment” and is considered “high risk for a possible heart attack.”
The testimonies were heard after the Sandiganbayan Third Division ordered four physicians treating Romualdez to appear before the court and provide information about his medical condition.
The September 8 order directed the Clerk of Court to issue subpoenas ad testificandum for Sibayan, Torres, Sy, and Dr. Rogelio Libarres of Cardinal Santos Medical Center. The doctors were scheduled to testify during the September 10 hearing as the court weighs whether Romualdez should remain hospitalized or be transferred to a detention facility.
The proceedings stem from Romualdez’s arrest warrant, which was served by the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region (CIDG-NCR) at Cardinal Santos on September 7. The police unit submitted its return of warrant to the Sandiganbayan on September 8.
On the same day the warrant was served, Romualdez filed a Manifestation of Hospital Confinement and Urgent Motion Ad Cautelam for Continued Hospital Confinement Under Custody, asking the court to permit him to remain at the hospital under guard because of his medical condition.
The Sandiganbayan Third Division issued the arrest warrant on September 7 after finding probable cause against Romualdez and his co-accused in connection with a plunder case filed by the Office of the Ombudsman.
The case involves alleged irregularities in the national budget.