Tuesday, November 28, 2006 Seares: Glo's ordeal about weight By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
People understand why a doctor withholds information about his patient. Confidentiality that binds lawyer to client or priest to confessor holds physician to patient tightly as well.
But Gloria Arroyo is no ordinary patient. She is president of the country. The public is entitled to know her true physical condition.
She can deflect questions about capacity to govern but not physical fitness. She is public property, a national treasure, if that helps justify intrusion into privacy even as it raises hackles of critics.
The doctor can tell no more than what the patient allows him to. Dr. Juliet Cervantes merely says Glo is fit but she needs to lose weight.
Not fat
Does that mean Mrs. Arroyo is fat? They say no woman is ever fat, she is just short for her weight.
Ideally, Cervantes says, it must be 50 kilograms for her 4’11" frame. Thus, four to eight pounds must drop from her present weight.
Glo should do more exercise, the doc says.
Apparently, rigors of trying to survive threat of being unseated haven’t helped shed off pounds. And these haven’t worked, weight-wise: running for cover whenever protesters mass at the gates and scampering to plug leaks in Palace secrets.
In her ordeal, Glo may find comfort from watching husband Mike who, even without his doc squealing, is much fatter.
That may keep her spirits up even as she is repeatedly reminded “to keep her weight down.”
