Magtajas had waited too long for an available intensive care unit space

By NITZ ARANCON
Correspondent

FORMER mayor Pablo “Ambing” Magtajas had to be moved from one hospital to another because of the lack of intensive care facilities. It took hours–and only after a P50-thousand downpayment–for him to be placed in an intensive care unit, the woman who took care of him for 18 years said yesterday.

Magtajas died of cardiac arrest at the Cagayan de Oro Medical Center at around 8:20 pm on Monday. He was 77.

The ex-mayor was rushed to the Polymedic  Plaza in Kauswagan by his daughter Councilor Suzette Daba past 12 noon because he grew so weak.

“Halos dili na siya moka-on. Kon akong pakan-on, iya nang iluwa kay morag dili na modawat iyang lawas sa pagka-on, pero sigi siya ingon sa ako nga gutom kuno siya pirme,” recalled Magtajas’s caregiver.

Councilor Daba would later identify the caregiver to this paper as  Elizabeth Masiglat.

Masiglat said Magtajas was admitted to Polymedic’s emergency room and stayed there because no ICU room was available.

The caregiver said they had planned to move Magtajas to the Capitol  University Medical City (CUMC) in Barangay Gusa but they were told no ICU room was available there, too.

She said Daba decided to bring her ailing father to the Cagayan de Oro Medical Center.

“Gipag-down kami ug  P50 thousand para sa ICU,” she claimed.

Masiglat said Magtajas was finally admitted to the ICU at around 4 pm.

But while in the ICU, she said, Magtajas slowly lost blood pressure.

“Pagka around 8:20 pm kabugto-an  gyud tawon siya,” the caregiver said.

Magtajas, according to Masiglat, had battled diabetes, hypertension, and a heart ailment, among others.

Jesus Valleser, who is related by affinity to the Magtajases and who announced the former mayor’s demise on Monday night, said Magtajas had also exhibited signs of the early stages of dementia.

Magtajas had been in and out of the hospital. In January, he was placed under intensive care at the Polymedic Plaza.

“Nakaecover man  siya adtong January pero  ang iyang sugar level,  magsigi ug ta-as,” Masiglat said.

There had been times when his sugar level reached 300 “bisan  walay iyang gakan-on,” the caregiver said.

Magtajas was among the longest serving mayors of Cagayan de Oro which he led before and after the 1986 Edsa revolution. Cagayan de Oro took the baby steps in its metamorphosis into a highly urbanized city during his administration.

Magtajas was a labor lawyer at the Associated Labor Unions-Trade Union Congress of the Philippines (ALU-TUCP) who became the city’s vice mayor in 1980 when former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr. was mayor.

He served as the city’s mayor in 1982 when  Pimentel was placed under house arrest, and he was subsequently elected mayor until he completed three consecutive office terms in 1998.

Magtajas’s rise to the mayoral post was “accidental,” said one of his friends Butch Pakinggan.

“Gipa-preso man ni Marcos si Pimentel niadtong panahona,” Pakinggan said.

Magtajas is survived by his children Allan, Katherine, Suzette, Monet and Paul Roland. Except for Suzette, who is a city councilor here, all his children are US-based.

The eldest of the siblings, Roberto, died when Magtajas was mayor.

The ex-mayor’s body lies in state at the Cosmopolitan Funeral Homes.

Valleser said Magtajas would be laid to rest beside his late wife Anita at Greenhills Memorial Park. The date of interment would be announced soon.