The wheelchair set

Wheelchair dealers must be ecstatic. If the current political climate holds, a number of government officials, their staff and enablers will soon be on trial for large-scale corruption. But some of them are being stricken by exotic ailments that land them in the merciful confines of a hospital. Cue the wheelchair.

For the wealthy and influential who, heaven forbid, must never land in an ordinary prison and be in the company of lumpen jailbirds, the hospital has become the go-to place for succor and asylum. In olden times, churches played that role; nowadays, it’s the hospitals and doctors who make politicians on their way to the dock moist-eyed and hopeful for a last stab at delaying the humiliation of prison time. While impoverished suspects go straight to the calaboose, the perfumed and well-off get to cool their heels in an air-conditioned hospital room attended by persons in white and guarded by a security phalanx. In this country, some guys have all the luck.

And gals, too. Former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in detention on charges of plunder, not only made wheelchair-riding and hospital-malingering a chic and viable option for those in similar straits, she virtually rewrote the playbook on it. Since stepping down, she has hardly been photographed not sitting in one. Once, in an apparent effort to court public sympathy, she was not above letting herself be photographed with hair awry and wearing a hideous-looking metal brace. She might indeed be ailing—but if you, shackled by neck support and debilitated by a spine disorder, would still insist on seeking reelection in your congressional district, you’d have to understand if the public rolls its eyes at your sickly laments. At any rate, Arroyo’s masterful spin has worked; she has never spent a day in an ordinary prison cell.

What an inspiration she must be to the likes of suspected pork barrel scam mastermind Janet Lim-Napoles, whose high-profile status has spared her a stay in Bilibid or any of the clammy, congested jails where luckless thieves and con men end up. She is being held in a spacious, airy detention center exclusive for her use. Better yet, she has enjoyed hospital visits and an extended stay for sundry medical conditions.

That certain people accustomed to the trappings of luxury and power can literally get hysterical in suddenly straitened circumstances is proved by Gigi Reyes, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s former chief of staff and his coaccused in the plunder case involving the pork barrel scam. Ordered by the court to be transferred to Camp Bagong Diwa from the Sandiganbayan basement cell where she was temporarily detained following her surrender, Reyes spent less than three hours in a 1.5 by 6 meters “isolation cell” that she shared with two pregnant women before she was rushed to a hospital for what was described as a “panic attack.”

According to her lawyer, Reyes became terrified upon learning that she would be sharing the dorm’s common area with at least nine suspected female members of the communist New People’s Army. She feared retaliation, the lawyer said, because the NPA “is hostile and antagonistic to Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, who was the minister of defense during the martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos.”

And because of that terror, doctors said, Reyes suffered hypertension, stiffness in her extremities, palpitations, back pain, and a sense of fatigue (conditions that others might regard as mere withdrawal symptoms considering the life she used to enjoy). Her blood pressure eventually stabilized, but despite the improvement, Reyes has not been discharged as of this writing because, doctors said, she still needed to be monitored given her “known history of dyspepsia, coronary artery disease, Bell’s Palsy and seizure attack.”

Is that the playbook again at work? Influential detainee in indeterminate hospital stay. Cue the wheelchair.

Arroyo, Napoles, Reyes, former military comptroller Carlos Garcia, the Ampatuans, fertilizer fund scam suspect Joc-joc Bolante, and, before them, former president Joseph Estrada and his son Jinggoy… All, and others, have claimed sickness and run to a medical facility at one point or another during their tussles with the court. At the rate this trend is going, judges should seriously consider relocating their courts to hospital suites.