Razon co-accused seeks medical furlough

A detained co-accused of retired Police Chief Avelino Razon has asked the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division to allow him to undergo medical examination.

Citing humanitarian reasons, businessman Tyrone Ong prayed that the graft court will allow him "immediate medical check-up in any of the government hospital which has the facility for thorough eye check-up."

"Accused Tyrone Ong has been suffering for several days of blurred vision, eye pain, and, severe bouts of headache/ migraine which makes it hard for him to sleep and feeling nauseous during the day," his lawyer, Atty. Renato Callanta Jr., said in his motion before the graft court.

Ong, who is currently detained at the Philippine National Police (PNP) Custodial Center in Camp Crame, is a co-accused of Razon in the 400 million anomalous repair and maintenance of V-150 light armored vehicles of the PNP. Just recently, the Fourth Division had issued a 50-page resolution dated February 6 that denied the petition for bail filed by Ong, Razon and 13 of their co-accused.

Even though his petition for bail got denied, Ong filed a motion that asked the graft court to fix the amount of bail he should pay since the offense of malversation through falsification charged against him is bailable.

Apart from this, his defense counsels cited that there is no aggravating circumstance alleged against him and that he had surrendered voluntarily which, under the law, would mitigate the imposition of the penalty to its minimum period if found guilty.

Ong's lawyers noted that the February 6 resolution indicates that "the penalty to be considered for purposes of bail shall be reclusion temporal in its maximum period to reclusion perpetua."

"Hence, the imposable penalty if found guilty would be the minimum of that prescribed for the offense charged which in this case would be 18 years and 8 months (minimum period). The said penalty under the RPC (Revised Penal Code) is bailable," stated the lawyers.

Even without the mitigating circumstance, they explained that "the imposable penalty would then be the medium period which is 18 years, 8 months, and 1 day to 20 years which is again bailable under the RPC."