Imelda seeks world tour for skull therapy

All the traumas of the world cannot prevent her from traveling around the globe to seek the best treatment.

Jet-setter former First Lady Imelda Marcos, who is known for her lavish lifestyle, is asking the Supreme Court (SC) to again allow her to go abroad, this time on a 45-day world tour for "skull trauma therapy."

The tour will take her to the United States, France and Saudi Arabia, if the high tribunal gives her the go-signal.

"It is most respectfully prayed that I be granted leave of court to travel," she said.

Marcos asked the justices of the SC’s first division, where she has a pending graft case, to give her permission to travel abroad from June 29 to Aug. 12 so that she could visit three specialists on the skull trauma she suffered last year.

"It is important that she leave immediately to avoid stroke or any complication," her attending physician, Roberto Anastacio of the cardiology section of the University of Santo Tomas Hospital, said in a single-page medical certificate.

Marcos had an accident last December, requiring her to undergo surgery. Anastacio said the 71-year-old widow has to undergo a post-operation procedure to determine whether the blood circulation in her brain has returned to normal.

Her physician recommended that she should "undergo a positron emission tomography," which, ironically, is not available in local hospitals.

The widow of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos said that should she be allowed to leave, she will be spending 25 days in the US where she would be treated at the Presbyterian Columbian Neurologic Institute in New York by Dr. Stephan Meyer and at the Columbian Medical Center by Dr. Coleman Ryan.

Her remaining 20 days will be split equally between France and Saudi Arabia. In France she will seek the medical opinion of professor Jean Leon Guermonprez at the Hospital Broussais.

Mrs. Marcos also said she has to undergo "further alternative medical evaluation and treatment" under Dr. Mohd Eid Rawzy at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Saudi Arabia.

"I have no intention to evade the due course of justice and the processes of this honorable court," she promised. She said she left the country several times in the past and returned, strictly following the terms of her permit to travel.