De Lima gets medical furlough to undergo surgery

A Muntinlupa City court has allowed detained Senator Leila De Lima to go on a five-day medical furlough to undergo a surgical procedure.

In an order dated June 15, Presiding Judge Abraham Joseph Alcantara of the Muntinlupa Regional Trial Court Branch 204 granted De Lima's motion for a medical furlough between June 19 and June 25 for "surgery and hospital confinement."

State prosecutors did not file an opposition to the request.

During her medical check-up on April 5, De Lima said she was diagnosed with pelvic organ prolapse stage 3 and was advised to undergo vaginal hysterectomy with anterior and posterior colporrhany "at the soonest possible time."

Her personal doctor, Dr. Errol Santelices, suggested that the senator be confined for at least 120 hours to evaluate the status of her recovery and assess if her heart condition is being affected, considering that she had a suspected mild stroke in April 2021. 

The court allowed the Philippine National Police Custodial Service Unit to assign police escorts to bring De Lima to the Manila Doctors Hospital.

It also directed the PNP to immediately return De Lima to her detention facility once the five-day furlough is completed.

De Lima has been detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame, Quezon City since February 2017 over allegations that she allowed the illegal drug trade to proliferate inside the New Bilibid Prison during her term as justice secretary.

Her alleged complicity in the sale of illegal drugs was supposedly in exchange for funds for her senatorial campaign in 2016, a charge she has repeatedly denied and claimed to have been fabricated by the Duterte administration.

A drug case against De Lima was junked by the Muntinlupa RTC Branch 205 in February last year. The senator is also facing another drug case that is pending before Branch 256. —VBL, GMA News