[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’PEOPLE POWWOW | Concerning the President’s health’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY HERBERT VEGO
[/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
[/av_textblock]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has spoken: There was nothing wrong with him in the five days that he had been “off camera,” starting from June 12 when he was a “no show” at the Philippine Independence Day commemoration at Rizal Park. He had just gone out incognito kuno. As to where, he would not tell.
Okay, let us swallow that line despite the equally vague “just resting” version from his spokesperson Ernesto Abella.
So now, are we to condemn some critics for painting a grim interpretation of Duterte’s disappearance from TV monitors?
Nay, not so. All Filipinos are entitled to official disclosure on the President’s health. It is an edict enshrined in the Philippine Constitution (Sec. 12, Article VII): “In case of serious illness of the President, the public shall be informed of the state of his health. The members of the Cabinet in charge of national security and foreign relations and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines shall not be denied access to the President during such illness.”
Was it surprising that “fake news” on the President’s debilitating health flooded the social media? Where truth is stifled, falsehood sprouts. The worst of them all was the rumor on alleged “intervention” of the United States government by way of a “military junta” taking over the commander-in-chief role of the President.
Coincidentally, former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. was frantically prodding the Supreme Court, acting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET), to fast-track the resolution of his election protest against Vice President Leni Robredo. He would want to be in her shoes, understandably because in case of Duterte’s death or demise, the vice president would take over.
While the rest of the nation doesn’t have to be as panicky as Bongbong, concern over the President’s health is not without basis. At age 72, he is the oldest-elected President of our nation. He is at an age when vulnerability to diseases sets in. In fact, the President himself has many times revealed what diseases he suffers from. He struggles against Buerger’s disease, a rare condition involving the constriction of blood vessels in the arms and legs, blocking blood flow; Barrett’s Esophagus, or gastroesophageal reflux disease, characterized by “back-flow” of the stomach’s contents into the esophagus; and painful migraine that necessitates doses of fentanyl (a regulated, pain-relieving opioid).
Travelling down memory lane, this writer remembers how it was in 1983 when Bongbong’s dad, then President Ferdinand Marcos, caught a rare kidney-destroying disease, systemic lupus erythematosus. He tried to make a secret out of his kidney transplant but to no avail. Opposition leader and former senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino flew home, apparently in pursuit of his aborted presidential ambition , only to meet his untimely death at the Manila International Airport in the hands of an assassin.
With Ninoy’s death came the ensuing power struggle between then Armed Forces Chief of Staff Fabian Ver on one hand and Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Philippine Constabulary Chief Fidel Ramos on the other, igniting the “People Power Revolution” at EDSA that ousted Marcos in February 1986.
In his Manila Times column yesterday, former senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad wrote that the President’s five-day disappearance was caused by “a mild stroke, which reportedly affected one of his arms, and brought him to Cardinal Santos Medical Center.”
Unfortunately, as in the case of Marcos, only time will sort the truth out. (hvego31@gmail.com/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
