PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte is well. That was the assurance made by Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella as questions about the whereabouts of the president mounted. He was last seen on June 11 during the funeral rites for soldiers killed in the operation against the Maute group in Marawi City.
“He’s resting for some time... You have to consider that he has been on the road for at least 23 days regarding fulfilling his martial law supervision. So it has been really brutal,” Abella said.
That the president’s schedule in the past days has been brutal is true. That he needs to rest his 72-year-old body is correct. But totally disappearing from public view is what caused all the fuss. He did not attend Monday’s Independence Day rites at the Luneta and some other appointments. Vice President Leni Robredo and Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano represented him at the Luneta.
The recent release by Malacañang of photos and a video clip showing the president did not totally quell suspicions on the health condition of the president either. One photo showed the president sitting doing paperwork while the other showed him with his special assistant, Christopher “Bong” Go. The other photos and the video clip showed him at the Villamor Airbase on June 15 on the way to Davao City.
But having photos taken is different from actually giving the public, through reporters, a glimpse of a healthy president. It only fueled suspicions that he was not really well, prompting some lawmakers to stress the importance of disclosing the president’s state of health.
“The health of the president of any country is not his or his family’s private affair alone. It is a matter of public concern,” Sen. Panfilo Lacson said.
All the speculations, though, would be dispelled if the president makes good Malacañang’s promise that he would finally surface this weekend (although the suspicions would probably intensify if he doesn’t). Even then, Malacañang should learn from what happened in the past few days and handle a similar situation better in the future. Merely issuing assurances and showing photographs would not be enough to ease the worries of the public.