Romualdez diagnosis fed through lead doctor’s assistant – witness

One of the doctors at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan said that the information contained in the clinical abstract of former House Speaker Martin Romualdez was gathered from his attending physician’s assistant at the facility.

Dr. Kurt Allen Sibayan, the resident doctor during the time of Romualdez’s admission, told the Sandiganbayan Third Division that Dr. Kemuel Yahot was the person that described the medical condition of the lawmaker to him while preparing his report.

While Sibayan was not able to personally see Romualdez, he said that Yahot was in the room where the former House leader was admitted amid complaints of chest pain and difficulties in breathing.

Yahot, who completed his residency training at Cardinal Santos Medical Center, was an assistant of the lawmaker’s overall medical coordinator Dr. Rosalio Torres who made the arrangements for his patient’s admission.

Sibayan told the court that he and Yahot completed the clinical abstract at a conference room in the hospital, with the latter dictating the contents of the medical summary based on prior phone calls to Romualdez’s specialists.

Notably, Yahot’s signature was not found on the clinical abstract that was submitted to the court as Sibayan said that the former was not a registered doctor under Cardinal Santos Medical Center as he was a “hospitalist.”

Confronted with the matter by Associate Justice Ronald Moreno, Torres said that hospitalists were a new terminology in the medical field that was used to describe doctors that worked for attending physicians through a professional arrangement.

The doctor further stated that he had authorized Yahot to act on his behalf, trusting the doctor that had become his assistant just this year.

Torres said that Yahot had become his assistant during Romualdez’s first visitation at the facility in July due to similar complaints about chest pain.

Unusual request

Earlier in the proceedings, the lawyers of Romualdez sought to clarify how Sibayan was able to create a clinical abstract even without personally seeing his patient.

The doctor said that the matter was part of his “clerical functions” as a resident doctor among many other responsibilities.

A factor that Sibayan did find “unusual,” however, was the fact that Romualdez’s staff had sought for a clinical abstract even before he was formally discharged from the facility.

The request supposedly went against their normal procedure, noting how Romualdez was admitted at the facility at 4 p.m. while the document was requested at 6 p.m.

On Monday, the former House Speaker was charged and arrested for plunder concerning his alleged amassing of P7.4 billion in ill-gotten wealth between 2022 to 2025 from various government infrastructure projects.

Aside from Romualdez, former House appropriations chair Zaldy Co, and two other private individuals were also charged for alleged conspiracy in the case. All three respondents remain at large.

Romualdez, for his part, has repeatedly denied the accusations, labeling the evidence against him as “baseless” while remaining committed to prove his innocence in court.