WHEN the Office of the Ombudsman announced toward the end of June that it would file plunder charges against Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, his allies cried “selective justice.” The religious sect to which he belongs even staged a lightning rally that caused traffic gridlock in parts of Metro Manila for two days to make that point.
Following what was arguably a telegraphed punch, the senator was finally arrested on July 6, triggering accusations of a different kind of selective justice.
The issue surfaced after Marcoleta complained of chest pains and fluctuating blood pressure during his booking process, prompting the authorities to confine him at the Philippine National Police (PNP) General Hospital rather than transferring him immediately to a standard jail cell.
The contrast was stark.
Marcoleta’s co-accused — former lawmaker Mike Defensor and businessman Joseph Espiritu — were immediately processed and transferred directly to the general population at the Quezon City Jail in Payatas. The senator was kept in an air-conditioned hospital room.
Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla added to the perception that Marcoleta was being given special treatment, telling journalists that he would undergo several tests that might take two days.
“Marcoleta is already 72 years old,” Remulla said in Filipino. “We won’t just be checking his blood pressure and heart rate. He still has to undergo many other tests... to ensure that he is medically fit.”
“We do not know when it (medical examination) will be complete, but hopefully, within the next two days, the examination will be completed. Do not rush us. Give us time to determine the full picture of his health,” the secretary added, demonstrating a level of patience and medical leeway never granted to ordinary, non-VIP suspects.
Three days after his arrest, the senator was still in the hospital, with the PNP Health Service saying he is being treated for several medical conditions:
– Stage 2 hypertension and fluctuating high blood pressure, which has reached as high as 160/90.
– Degenerative disc disease, a spine condition causing him back pain, for which doctors noted he will need rehabilitation therapy.
– Mild pneumonia, which doctors say likely developed before his admission.
– Dyslipidemia, or high cholesterol found during his recent laboratory blood tests.
Is the senator, in fact, being given special treatment?
The police deny that he is.
“You can go to the [hospital]; you can see where he’s detained,” said PNP chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., emphasizing that no special privileges — outside of not being in a jail cell — were being granted.
But it seems like the Sandiganbayan’s Third Division, which ordered Marcoleta’s arrest, wants to know for sure, demanding that the PNP immediately submit medical records and an official booking procedure report, requiring it to legally justify why Marcoleta was still in a hospital bed rather than a regular jail cell. The court has since ruled that the senator will stay in police custody — and not in a jail cell — while awaiting trial.
We certainly do not wish to deprive the senator of proper medical treatment, but we do see a pattern in which high-profile, politically influential persons are treated with deference that ordinary suspects will never get. These politically connected detainees often manifest sudden, severe medical conditions immediately upon or shortly after their arrest and our courts frequently grant them “hospital arrest” in government medical suites.
Following his arrest for plunder in 2001, ousted president Joseph Estrada spent a brief period in a regular facility before being moved to the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) and later transferred to his private 15-hectare villa in Tanay, Rizal, under house arrest.
Facing plunder charges in 2012, Estrada’s successor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, spent nearly four years under hospital arrest in a presidential suite at the VMMC.
More recently, former Public Works secretary Manuel Bonoan, following his arrest in connection with the flood-control bribery scandal, was also granted hospital arrest due to his age and advanced chronic conditions.
When politicians cannot secure hospital arrest, their legal teams almost automatically petition the courts to bypass the ordinary jail system, citing “security threats” in public prisons. Instead, they are sent to the PNP Custodial Center inside the police headquarters at Camp Crame. This, and not a regular jail, was where senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, and Bong Revilla were detained after they were arrested in connection with the multibillion-peso pork barrel scam.
Giving politicians special treatment in jail undermines the core principles of justice and governance. It violates the principle of equality before the law, erodes public trust in institutions, and defeats the purposes of imprisonment. It also perpetuates corruption and the abuse of power for which they were arrested in the first place.
