Bone biopsy fairly common procedure

GOTCHA 

By Jarius Bondoc 
The Philippine Star

Immigration said all the right things about parricide suspect Ramona Bautista’s flight out of the country: our hands were tied; we had no authority to prevent her from leaving; there was no hold-departure or travel-watch order; she had a one-way plane ticket but she indicated in her departure card that she is a (foreign) resident; we are checking with the airline her final destination; the officer who cleared her departure has been told to submit a report. In short, they did everything legally. Letting Ramona go had nothing to do with her being the daughter of a former senator and the stepsister of a sitting one.

So how come Immigration can’t do the same to ordinary Filipinos? How come it boasts to have off-loaded 60,000 tourists at international airports from August 2010 to July 2011, some 5,000 a month, on mere suspicion of being trafficked, undocumented overseas workers? How come it discriminatorily profiled them at immigration counters looking and sounding provincial, so poor and incapable of foreign travel? How come it off-loaded them for failure to show non-tourist documents like income tax returns, bankbooks and employment certificates? How come it has no list of its 60,000 “rescued victims”, and filed only two cases against human traffickers? How come it has not refunded the poor “near-victims of abuse overseas” the P1,620 travel tax and P750 airport terminal fee that they each had paid? How come it barred from leaving the maid of the Sultan of Johore, Malaysia, who was returning to work after vacationing in the Philippines? How come it debarred too an air-con businessman whose partners in Qatar had sent him a paper visa for conversion into a stamped version upon arrival at Doha? How come it demanded a janitor on a company outing with officemates to produce a valid ID card as if his passport was insufficient?

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Going back to Ramona, she could have been stopped from leaving had the Department of Justice listed her on travel-watch or the court ordered a hold-departure. This would have happened had the police been as quick to file charges of murdering her elder brother as they were in arresting her fellow-suspect younger brother. Too, had the prosecutor been quick to hold an inquest and elevate the case to court. Apparently they goofed.

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In contrast, ex-president Gloria Arroyo is listed in the DOJ travel-watch, pending the study of five plunder raps filed against her. Thus, she must submit a foreign travel itinerary. She had to be examined by Health Sec. Enrique Ona, who noted that she was recuperating well so there’s no need to rush a travel clearance. And she must wait for Justice Secretary to decide this week whether or not to grant it.

For Arroyo’s fuming lawyers all that is cruel. Supposedly she needs immediate bone biopsy that only a foreign doctor can perform. They challenged Ona to produce such specialist in the Philippines.

The health chief will have easy pickings. Dr. Ed Clemente of Capitol Medical Center, Quezon City, says that bone biopsy is a “fairly common procedure.” If it is to be done on the neck, Arroyo will not run out of orthopedic surgeons or neurosurgeons to do it. One orthopedic surgeon, a high school classmate who requested anonymity, suggests that Arroyo also check with pathology department of the Philippine Orthopedic Center in QC or the Philippine General Hospital in Manila. Former president Joseph Estrada’s lawyer also had said once that there was no local expert in total knee replacement, so he had to have it done in Hong Kong. The Philippine Orthopedic Association belied the claim.

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Ex-sectoral congressman Mujiv Hataman disavows knowledge of any graft case filed against him in 2007 by 19 Anak Mindanao party mates. What he does recall were media allegations that year of pork barrel misuse. For maligning him, he had sued that expelled faction of the party that was displeased with his siding with the other camp.

The public works projects were real, not fictitious, he said. Of four in Lamitan, Basilan, government engineers and barangay chairmen had signed certificates of completion and acceptance. The P1.5-million water system in Barangay Bohe Piang, Al Barka, truly was not done because diverted to Barangay Pepil, Tipo-Tipo, on request of the original proponent, Vice Gov. Al-Rasheed Sakkalahul and approved by the budget department. If a good portion of the pork barrel allocations went to his Basilan home-province, Hataman said it was the decision of the party council. He has only one house, in Quezon City; the one in Zamboanga is his sister’s.

More interesting is Hataman’s plan, if he is named acting governor of the Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao, to rid it of loose guns. It would start with an amnesty, so that owners, especially politicos, may register their rifles with no penalty. Then, backed by the army and police, he would have the unlicensed ones confiscated. Corollary to that is swift justice to prevent rido, or clan wars that incite the buildup of arsenals. Now is the time to do it, Hataman says, after the region saw what happened even to a powerful political clan like the Ampatuans.

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Naome M. Ragiles also disputes the claim of Camarines Sur Gov. L-Ray Villafuerte about the state firm Partido Development Authority. The PDA in the 4th district is not one of the 36 that Rep. Rufus Rodriguez wants abolished, she says. The congressman said so in radio interviews with Camarines broadcaster, she adds, so Villafuerte had no basis to urge President Noynoy Aquino to stop funding it.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

E-mail: jariusbondoc@gmail.com