Doctors from St. Luke’s Medical Center in Taguig City said Monday that First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo is now out of the “critical period” after suffering a new tear in a major blood vessel connected to the heart last week.

Mr. Arroyo, 63, who was admitted to the new medical facility at the Global City in Fort Bonifacio on Thursday morning, is also only on his way out of the intensive care unit (ICU) after responding well to medication.

“We expect to transfer him to a regular room today (Tuesday) and continue with his progressive physical rehabilitation,” the First Gentleman’s chief attending physician, Dr. Juliet Gopez-Cervantes, told members of the media during a medical briefing at 11 a.m. Monday.

Cervantes said Mr. Arroyo has shown no signs or symptoms that the re-dissection (new tear) of the thoracic aorta that the patient suffered is still progressing. “Wala na siya sa critical period, he is stable (He is out of the critical period).”

“Overall, we are satisfied with the clinical progress of the First Gentleman, Mike Arroyo,” she said.

As for what caused the tear in the first place, Dr. Rommel Cariño, Mr. Arroyo’s cardiovascular surgeon, said that the latter’s aorta is “very weak.” The aorta is the largest artery in the body which helps the heart pump blood to different parts of the body.

“Sixty to seventy percent of the circumference of the whole aorta is already torn,” Cariño said, referring to the First Gentleman. “We have to conduct CT scan every six or three months to see if there are new tears.”

Cariño, however, stressed that the latest tear which caused Mr. Arroyo’s hospitalization is “very small, only two millimeters long” and does not qualify as an aneurysm.