Ex-Senate president Pimentel in ICU

MANILA, Philippines — Former Senate president Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr. is under intensive care, his family confirmed last night.

“Senator Nene Pimentel is very ill and currently under treatment. Doctors and hospital staff are doing their best to help him. We ardently ask that you join us in prayer for his full and complete recovery,” the former senator’s family said in a statement.

News of Pimentel’s condition broke out after PDP-Laban spokesman Ron Munsayac in his Twitter account asked for prayers for the recovery of the former senator, who is confined in an undisclosed hospital in Metro Manila.

“We are humbly asking our friends and partymates in the @PDPLABAN to pray for the full & speedy recovery of our founder and Chairman Emeritus Tatay Aquilino ‘Nene’ Pimentel, Jr. who is currently in the ICU,” Munsayac tweeted.

Known as the “father of the Local Government Code,” Pimentel is father of incumbent Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.

The elder Pimentel was elected senator in 1987 and served until 1992. He again served from 1998 to 2010. He was elected Senate president from 2000 to 2001 during which he and then chief justice Hilario Davide Jr. presided over the impeachment trial of then president Joseph Estrada.

Pimentel served as Senate minority leader from 2001 to 2002 and from 2004 to 2010.

He founded the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino in 1982, which later merged in 1986 with the Lakas ng Bayan — the party founded by the late former senator Benigno Aquino Jr.