The Court of Appeals (CA) has denied the plea of detained former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Datu Zaldy Ampatuan for transfer to a hospital or other medical facility due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Ampatuan had asked the Quezon City regional trial court (RTC) for his transfer due to “clear and present danger” posed by Covid in his detention cell at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) in Muntinlupa City.
He started serving his jail terms at NBP after his conviction for 57 counts of murder by the Quezon City regional trial court (RTC) in the 2009 Maguindanao massacre where 57 persons died, 32 of them journalists.
He asked the RTC for his transfer to a hospital or medical facility. He told the trial court he had suffered from stroke three times and he has hypertension, diabetes and chronic atrial fibrillation. He said his comorbidities make him vulnerable to contracting the Covid virus.
When the RTC denied his plea, Ampatuan elevated his case to the CA.
In a decision written by Associate Justice Angelene Mary W. Quimpo-Sale, the CA affirmed the July 20, 2020 order issued by RTC Judge Jocelyn Solis-Reyes, the same trial court magistrate who convicted Ampatuan and 27 other persons of murder in the Maguindanao massacre cases.
The CA said: “In this case, the petition does not expound on how the clear and present danger rule applies to petitioner (Ampatuan), when the issue raised herein neither involves the freedom of expression nor of religion.”
It said that when Ampatuan filed his case, the National Capital Region (NCR) was on general community quarantine (GCQ) which called for temporary measures limiting movement and transportation, regulation of operating industries, and presence of uniformed personnel to enforce community quarantine protocols.
By the end of July 2020, there were 83,673 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and the vaccines against the virus were yet to be available.
With the implementation of the vaccination programs, the infections in the entire country have already gone down, and the NCR is no longer on GCQ but is presently on Alert Level 1, which refers to areas wherein case transmission of the virus is low and decreasing, and total bed and intensive care unit utilization rate is low.
Also, the CA pointed out that more than half of persons deprived of liberty (PDLs) under the Bureau of Corrections have been fully vaccinated as of March 14, 2021 and have started receiving booster shots against Covid-19.
“These developments are based on and affirmed by official statements of the government and are also of public knowledge of which judicial notice may be taken,” the CA said.
“And while the Court in the case at bar is called upon to make a determination of whether respondent judge acted with grave abuse of discretion in issuing the assailed order, these events and developments have supervened thereby rendering the reliefs prayed for moot,” it stressed.