MANILA, Philippines – Former President and current Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 13-month-old grandson passed away yesterday as a result of complications from a congenital heart ailment. The toddler’s death was reported by one of Arroyo’s legal advisers Lawyer Larry Gadon.
Gadon said that Jorge Alonzo Arroyo Bernas, youngest child of Arroyo’s daughter youngest “Luli” Arroyo-Bernas and Luigi Bernas, succumbed to the complications at approximately 9:30 a.m at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City.
Unconfirmed reports said that the baby, nicknamed Jugo, had been rushed by his father to the hospital on Saturday night, after he noticed that the boy was feeling ill.
No concrete details have been issued as yet by the family.
Speaking to reporters from The STAR, a visitor of Arroyo – who is detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC)on charges of plunder – said that the former chief of state is grief-stricken and “kept on crying.”
“I don’t know how to describe it… she loves her grandchildren so much,” the visitor added.
Gadon noted that Arroyo is looking into the possibility of filing a petition today, requesting the Sandiganbayan to grant her a furlough.
According to a Mother’s day piece which came out in Mons Romulo’s column in The STAR, Jugo was diagnosed with serious heart ailments even while in utero. The baby was fragile from birth, due to his condition.
“We have to be very careful that he doesn’t catch any respiratory illnesses because these can be fatal for him. This means we have to limit his contact with friends and family, and consequently, I have also had to spend less time with them so I can tend to him. He also still needs to feed every few hours because he can only take a limited amount of milk in one sitting, so up to now I get up every few hours at night for his milk to make sure he can get the maximum calorie intake each day,” Luli was quoted in Romulo’s article.