After Senate hearing, Garin undergoes appendectomy

CEBU, Philippines — Former Health secretary Janette Loreto Garin, after testifying in the Senate probe yesterday over the Dengvaxia vaccine, went straight to the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City, Metro Manila to undergo an appendectomy, a surgical operation to remove her inflamed appendix.

Leyte Vice Governor Carlo Loreto, her elder brother, sent this update to The Freeman, adding that Garin had not eaten for the past two days, as ordered by her physician in a hospital in Tacloban City, as a requirement before the surgery for her appendicitis, which had to be postponed so she can attend the Senate hearing.

“She will have her surgery this afternoon (yesterday at 5 p.m.),” said the vice governor, before the hearing. "We are already here in the Senate."

Garin was confined last Friday at the Divine Word Hospital in Tacloban City due to acute appendicitis, while attending the wake of her father, Engineer Jose “Eti” Loreto, a former mayor of Baybay town (now city) in Leyte, who passed away on December 4 after a lingering illness at the age of 78.

Vice Governor Loreto said Garin was against having her appendectomy done in Tacloban at the time because she wanted to be present during the Senate probe yesterday, to shed light over the Dengvaxia controversy.

Janette Loreto Garin belongs to Leyte's enduring Loreto-Veloso-Petilla dynasty. She was Sangguniang Kabataan Federation president of Leyte province before she got married to the political Garin family in Western Visayas.

She became congresswoman of Iloilo before getting appointed Health secretary during the PNoy Aquino administration, together with her first cousin, former Leyte governor Carlos Jerico Loreto Petilla, who was named Energy secretary. (FREEMAN)