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MANILA, Philippines – The Attorney General’s Office (OPG) under the Department of Justice (DOJ) dismissed for lack of probable cause the complaint against Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, accusing him of violating quarantine protocols when accompanying his pregnant wife to a hospital last year despite the possibility that it could be positive for COVID-19.
The DOJ-OPG dismissed the complaint filed by attorney Rico Quicho against the senator for violation of Republic Law No. 11332, or the Law on Mandatory Reporting of Notifiable Diseases and Health Events of Public Health Concern, and the emissions of the Department of Health (DOH).
Pimentel was criticized in March for going to the Makati Medical Center (MMC) with his wife who was due to give birth, just days after she was tested for COVID-19.
In his defense, he said he learned he was positive for COVID-19 when he was already in the hospital, prompting him to leave immediately.
Irresponsible, reckless
The hospital, however, called their actions “irresponsible and reckless” for violating the strict infection and containment protocols of the MMC delivery room complex.
Shopping chain S&R also confirmed that Pimentel had been at its Bonifacio Global City branch a few days earlier.
But according to DOJ-OPG, since Pimentel “was not a public health authority”, “it was not required to report” under the mandatory notification provision of RA 11332 that “it was intended solely for public health authorities.” Assuming the senator had to report his medical condition as private, the DOJ-OPG said “there was nothing to report” at the time he went to the hospital and the S&R on March 24 and 16, respectively.
He added that Pimentel “only knew or learned of his condition of being positive for COVID-19 on the same day, March 24, 2020, while he was already inside the hospital facilities.”
“There is no ‘non-cooperation’ under Section 9 (e) of RA 11332 as Senator Koko Pimentel was deemed to have ‘cooperated’ when he left the hospital premises immediately after receiving information about his medical condition,” he said. the DOJ-OPG. .
He added that the complaint against him was “fatally flawed,” explaining that Quicho was not the appropriate party to file the complaint while the evidence presented was hearsay.
“News reports, being hearsay evidence, cannot be considered as evidence of the allegations in the complaint, or as evidence of the truth, because they were simply learned, read or heard from others,” he said.
Free pass
A similar complaint was also filed against Pimentel with the National Directorate of Investigations. But prosecution attorney Honey Delgado, a DOJ-OPG spokeswoman, said the NBI had presented the DOJ with a final report recommending that the case be closed and rescinded.
According to Quicho, the dismissal of his complaint “casts serious doubt on the government’s commitment to demand accountability from those who, intentionally or negligently, endangered the lives of our leaders.”
“This promotes the wrong message that ordinary people should suffer the full extent of the law and some, while those in power get a free pass,” he said in a statement to reporters.
“Is there a different set of rules for Mr. Koko Pimentel, the powerful and the privileged, and a different set for the fishmonger, the weak, the forgotten, and the ‘unimportant’?” Quicho asked.
“When policies and pronouncements change arbitrarily depending on who gets the shorter end of the stick, there are no policies or principles to speak of. These policies then become tools of oppression against those disadvantaged by those in power, ”he added.
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