SEN. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Saturday questioned the hospitalization of former Public Works secretary Manuel Bonoan and Sen. Rodante Marcoleta at the Philippine National Police (PNP) General Hospital following their arrest.
Lacson said he will try to find out during the 2027 budget deliberations who pays for the confinement of non-PNP beneficiaries.
Bonoan and Marcoleta faced plunder and graft charges before the Sandiganbayan.
Lacson sees a recurring pattern in the hospitalization of prominent personalities facing arrest or contempt proceedings.
“Since time immemorial, when a prominent personality is cited in contempt or faces arrest, he/she suddenly gets sick and needs to be hospitalized,” he said in an interview on DZMM radio.
He said he intends to ask the PNP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) during deliberations on their proposed 2027 budgets who shoulders the hospitalization costs of non-PNP dependents.
“The PNP hospital has its own budget funded by taxpayers. Those authorized to be confined there are PNP members or their dependents. But who shoulders the costs for the stay and medication of Bonoan and Marcoleta? As far as I know, neither of them (Bonoan or Marcoleta) is PNP dependent,” he said.
Lacson, who served as PNP chief from 1999 to 2001, said some police personnel and their dependents have reportedly been refused admission because of limited hospital capacity.
He also cited what he described as a pattern in which prominent individuals develop medical conditions after arrest warrants are issued.
Last July 8, Lacson posted on X: “WARNING: Don’t get sick. Medicine is expensive. Don’t get a ‘warrant.’ You might get sick.”
“When the arrest warrant comes out, so does the medical condition — you name it — pneumonia, high blood pressure, high cholesterol levels. Some require neck braces; others have back pain. The diseases come out when the arrest warrant comes out,” he said.
Lacson recalled that former senator Juan Ponce Enrile was confined at the PNP hospital while facing charges related to the pork barrel scandal in the 2010s, noting that Enrile had served as defense secretary when the Philippine National Police was still part of the defense establishment as the Philippine Constabulary. JAVIER JOE ISMAEL
