Convicted rapist and murderer Antonio Sanchez has been confined at the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) hospital due to a “complicated” illness, the Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) said on Tuesday, September 1.

BuCor Spokesperson Gabriel Chaclag confirmed to reporters on Tuesday that the 71-year-old Sanchez was first rushed to the Ospital ng Muntinlupa (OsMun) on Monday night, August 31.

“May sakit siya; complicated. Dinala siya sa Osmun kagabi ng 7 pm pero hindi siya tinanggap dahil wala na raw space for probable COVID patient dahil may symptoms na rin siya ng flu,” Chaglag told reports in a message on Tuesday.

(He’s ill; it’s complicated. He was taken to OsMun last night at 7 pm but he was refused admission because they had no more space for a probable COVID patient because he also had flu symptoms.)

Asked to expound on the “complicated” ailment, Chaclag said Sanchez has been sick for several reasons generally due to old age.

Chaclag said Sanchez was brought back to the NBP hospital, where he is currently admitted.

Chaclag said Sanchez, the former powerful mayor of Calauan, Laguna, was also experiencing shortness of breath. He added Sanchez had been subjected to a  real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test.

Since Tuesday, Chaclag has given varying details on Sanchez’s condition, including “severe symptoms.”

Justice Undersecretary Markk Perete told reporters Wednesday, September 2, that Sanchez had been diagnosed with “electrolyte imbalance secondary to acute gastro enteritis, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, benign prostatic hypertrophy.”

In layman’s terms, the ailments mean diarrhea, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and enlargement of prostate, and the latter 3 are considered chronic or have been persisting for a period of time.

Perete said a request to transfer Sanchez to the Philippine General Hospital (PGH), one of the country’s COVID-19 core hospitals, has been made.

Perete said Sanchez was swabbed Monday and his results are expected in 3 to 5 days.

Sanchez made the headlines in August last year, following his botched early release. The former Calauan, Laguna mayor was supposed to be a beneficiary of the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) law after a Supreme Court ruling made the law retroactive.

Under the GCTA law, convicts like Sanchez, who was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to reclusion perpetua or up to 40 years, could walk free after only 25 years.

Public outrage over the potential release of Sanchez – whom the Supreme Court had called an “unthinking beast,” for the murders of college students Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez – prompted the Duterte government not only to overhaul the NBP, but to revise the GCTA’s internal rules.

This resulted in the hauling back of thousands of heinous crime convicts, and the indefinite suspension of GCTA, depriving deserving prisoners of freedom.

Bilibid had come under fire during the pandemic for its lack of transparency over the coronavirus outbreak situation inside prison, excaberbated by the news of deaths of high-profile drug convicts, who were shown to have died days within each other.

Coronavirus protocol required that the high-profile convicts be cremated immediately, raising speculations about the circumstances of such deaths. The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has been tasked to probe this.

The Senate was supposed to also hold inquiries into the high-profile deaths, but has yet to do so. – Rappler.com