ORMOC CITY – The Regional Trial Court judge here who has ordered the arrest of the controversial Celso delos Angeles of the Legacy Group of Companies, who is facing several counts of syndicated estafa alongside other company executives, has allowed his hospital detention for “humanitarian reasons”.
Delos Angeles is now at the OSPA-Farmer’s Medical Center. He had been diagnosed with Stage 4 throat cancer, the tracheal tubes of which are feared as having been infected. Delos Angeles was arrested by Quezon City policeman at the St. Luke’s Hospital where he was confined and brought here to Ormoc City last Thursday in the morning.
Atty. Carl Magsoling, RTC Branch 12 Clerk of Court, said that Judge Clinton C. Nuevo has agreed to delos Angeles’ hospital detention after a meeting with jail officers on the afternoon of Friday, August 20, “provided he shoulders the expenses”. Judge Nuevo has assigned Magsoling to be his official spokesperson on the delos Angeles case.
Delos Angeles, one of the country’s richest men in the past with a lifestyle to envy by most Filipinos, arrived here in Ormoc City at around 9:30 in the morning of Thursday, August 19. Thin, weak and visibly ailing, he was a far cry from the confident man and politician the public knew and saw on TV in the past. He also claims to be penniless.
He will be confined at the OSPA-Farmer’s Medical Center or until his request to be returned to St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila is granted. The Court will be hearing his motion to be returned to the hospital on Tuesday, August 24.
Delos Angeles was arrested for grand estafa as president of the First Interstate Bank that had its head office in Kananga town, this province. Kananga is under the territorial jurisdiction of the Ormoc RTC.
He also has other cases in places like Davao, General Santos City and Manila, also for grand estafa after the pre-need company and First Interstate Bank that Legacy owned, collapsed.
He was initially brought to the Leyte sub-provincial jail in this city. Domingo Plimaco, sub-provincial jail warden, admitted he had a problem with delos Angeles. His health condition, he said, necessitates that he is confined separately.
The sub-provincial jail, he said, originally built to accommodate 40 inmates, now has 100 inmates. All quarters are cramped and sanitation not so ideal that they had to let delos Angeles occupy the lobby when he arrived.
He added it does not take a doctor to see that delos Angeles is very sick, saying he agrees to his hospital detention. In fact, he added, he had to bring him to the Gatchalian Clinic on the afternoon of the day he arrived to have his tracheal tubes cleaned and declogged.
Plimaco said delos Angeles stinks when he speaks, indicated infection.
On the other hand, Atty. Magsoling said that shortly before delos Angeles arrived, he sent a personal letter to Judge Clinton Nuevo to let him remain in Manila and to release him from police custody, and return him to the St. Luke’s Hospital where he was arrested.
Delos Angeles said that he was already in hospital detention at St. Luke’s and the law enforcers disregarded the previous orders of three judges who have allowed him to remain at the hospital for his confinement, considering he is seriously ill.
However, despite the orders from the three judges, the Quezon City Police District insisted on arresting him on the strength of the warrant from Ormoc City.
Magsoling said that the Court couldn’t act on delos Angeles’ letter, saying they needed a proper motion for the Court to act. Surprisingly, he added, of all the Courts in the land where delos Angeles has been charged, it was only in Ormoc that he had no lawyer.
In his letter, delos Angeles said he did not have money to pay for what the lawyers were asking from him for the Ormoc case.
As no lawyer contested the complaint filed against him at the prosecutor’s level in mid-June yet, Magsoling said an information was subsequently filed at the RTC and the warrant of arrest issued. The crime of grand estafa is not bailable.
It was also learned that except two of Celos delos Angeles’ co-accused, all sent their lawyers to contest the legal action filed against them by a special panel of the Department of Justice in Ormoc.
Some filed motions for reconsideration but the latest on that, Magsoling added, is that the DOJ has denied the recon. The denial was issued recently, only on August 6, but the aggrieved parties have filed for another relief or “petitions to review”.
Co-respondents to delos Angeles are Alexis S. Petralba of Echavez Street in Cebu City; Namnama Pasetes of Project 6, Quezon City; Carolina Hiñola of Goodwill Homes in Quezon City; Roy Hilario of Makati City; Virgilio Odejar of Quezon City; Atty. Christine Antenor Cruz-Limpin of Mandaluyong City; Arnel Sulquiano of Quezon City and several John and Jane Does. By Lalaine M. Jimenea
Court allows hospital detention of Legacy Group’s Celso delos Angeles
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