Court extends Doy’s stay abroad

The Sandiganbayan allowed yesterday former Vice President Salvador Laurel to extend his stay abroad until Aug. 15 and seek a second opinion on initial findings that he is suffering from a "certain type of lymphoma."

Laurel faces graft charges in connection with the P9.6-billion Expo Filipino scam when he was still chairman of the National Centennial Commission. He is accused of unilaterally increasing the budget for the construction of the ampitheater in the 1998 Centennial Expo, located in Pampanga, from P248 million to P1.165 billion.

Laurel was allowed to leave the country last June 28. After a month and a half of almost daily tests, he was diagnosed by doctors at the Stanford Hospital and Clinics in California with a certain type of lymphoma, a kind of cancer affecting the lymph nodes.

He will now proceed to Canada, where he will seek a second opinion.

Filipino doctors initially diagnosed the 74-year-old Laurel as "suffering from severe anemia secondary myelophthisis" and that he has a "low platelet count."

Laurel’s hemoglobin count of 66 grams per liter is "markedly" lower than the normal level of 140 grams per liter, according to physicians.

Presiding Justice Minita Chico-Nazario, chairwoman of the Sandiganbayan’s fifth division, granted Laurel’s request for an extension of his stay abroad after prosecutor Jose Micael said he had "no objection" to the request.

Micael said it would be "impractical" for government prosecutors to oppose the request because Canada is nearer the US than the Philippines.

Laurel’s lawyer, Jose Oliveros, said he will make the necessary arrangements for his client’s travel to Vancouver, where Laurel will consult with Dr. Joseph Connors of the University of British Columbia.

Connors heads the Lymphoma Tumor Group of the British Columbia Cancer Agency, Oliveros said.

The Sandiganbayan had remanded the graft case to the Office of the Ombudsman last May 20. The justices, in a two-page resolution, noted that Laurel was "deprived of his statutory rights to file a motion for reconsideration" when the suit was filed on March 21, the same day he received a copy of the Ombudsman’s ruling that held him liable for graft.