Next on the block: Arroyo doctors

The doctors of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo are in deep trouble. And for no other reason than because they are doctors of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. They are in no better situation than the doctor of Michael Jackson, who has to be punished because fans cannot accept Jacko’s death.

 An official of the Philippine Medical Association has taken Arroyo’s doctors to task for saying there is no one in the Philippines qualified to handle her ailment. The official insists there must be dozens who are in fact qualified to do so.

 Actually, it should be no skin of this official’s back what the Arroyo doctors said. The fact that none of the dozens of doctors he says can handle Arroyo’s condition are speaking up is making some people wonder why it is only this one official who developed an anxiety attack.

 Well, wonder no more, people. Senator Teofisto Guingona III has supplied the answer. The head of the Senate blue ribbon committee has announced that the Arroyo doctors would be summoned to shed light on the real state of Arroyo’s health.

 According to Guingona, he wants to know whether the condition of Arroyo is truly urgent and life-threatening because he believes her health lies at the very core of the controversy surrounding her failed bid last week to leave the country for medical treatment.

 Before Guingona proceeds with his inquiry, perhaps he should make a clean breast of his own intentions first. Does he sincerely want to know the truth about Arroyo’s health? If so, is he willing to support medical treatment abroad if he is convinced she really needs it?

 More importantly, how open is he to be convinced by the real experts, the ones who truly had direct access to Arroyo, over and beyond what other experts may say from the outside looking in? How willing is he to ignore his own biases and that of his non-expert political colleagues?

 On the other hand, if it is not too late, would Guingona be willing to forego his intended inquiry in light of the fact that he is grossly mistaken in concluding that the health of Arroyo is at the core of the issue.

 The health of Arroyo is not the core of the issue. It never had been. She could be faking it for anyone cares. It was the curtailment of her constitutional right to travel and the subsequent executive assault on the Supreme Court that has shaken the foundation of this nation.

 If Guingona insists on his inquiry, as what some people fear he will, he will only be setting off on the wrong foot, and a journey that begins in the wrong direction will arrive at the wrong destination.

 But does Guingona care any less? Of course not. For if you think it is uncanny for him to announce his intention to summon the Arroyo doctors to an inquiry at about the same time that an official from the Philippine Medical Association came blazing away, it is.

 Doctors usually do not fight one another, at least not publicly. Doctors are a very united, if secretive, group. That proposed laws against malpractices never took off shows just how strong and united the group is.

 So how come one doctor is now badmouthing the Arroyo doctors? And at about the same time that politicians are poised to squeeze them? Is there an attempt to go after the Arroyo doctors simply because they are Arroyo doctors?

I would not be surprised if next to be unleashed against the Arroyo doctors would be the BIR, the new hound dog of this administration against its enemies. Remember that the BIR recently said most doctors cheat on their taxes, paying only an average of P5,000 per year? Abangan.