A BADLY-missed President Rodrigo Duterte has finally shown up after two weeks of absence and spent most of his time addressing the public with rants against critics whom he claimed wished for his death.
He likewise shrugged off reports on his health, while urging the opposition to pray harder if they wanted him dead.
Duterte specifically hit detained Senator Leila De Lima, who he sent to jail on drug allegations.
“If you want me to die early, you must pray harder. Actually, what you intend or what you would like to happen is to see me go. You want me to go and you’re praying for that,” Duterte said.
He also warded off criticisms over the videos and photos released by his longtime aide and now Senator Bong Go, showing him doing some jogging, golfing and driving a motorcycle.
“But if you say that my health is preventing me from exercising the powers of the presidency, I am not sick. That’s why I can still play golf, I can still ride the motorcycle, because I can,” said Duterte in what appears to be an effort to quell issues on his health condition.
The Malacañang chief executive also insisted that there’s nothing wrong with what he did – jogging, golfing and biking since he isn’t doing those stuff during working hours.
“The problem is you should look into the time I enjoy my hobbies. I do them at night. If I do them during the day, you will also see something wrong with it,” added the President who claims to be still working while keeping himself scarce from the public.
The photos and videos released by Senator Go drew flak, as it showed a President enjoying his hobbies amid the heightened pandemic situation in the country. He went scarce immediately after the re-imposition of the enhanced community quarantine in the National Capital Region and its adjoining provinces.
Interestingly, it was also during this time that Chinese battleships chased a Filipino vessel off the West Philippine Sea.
Duterte has not made any public appearances for almost two weeks. The last time Duterte was seen in public was on March 29, when he was on hand to receive the shipment of a million doses of a vaccine made by Chinese firm Sinovac.
He then went on hiatus for the Holy Week, and expected to resurface on April 5 for his weekly televised address. But that was abruptly cancelled following reports that more than 150 of his bodyguards tested positive for Covid-19.
That same day, his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, confirmed that she had flown to Singapore a day earlier with her son, a nanny and a bodyguard.
The presidential daughter declined to say why she went there, sparking speculations that Duterte himself could be in Singapore after suffering a mild stroke.
Purported photos of an air ambulance that supposedly flew Duterte to Singapore surfaced, and the hashtag #nasaanangpangulo trended again on social media.
By Saturday, the nation was abuzz with rumors that he was already dead, compelling his longtime aide and now Senator Bong Go to release videos and photos showing Duterte jogging, golfing, and motorbike-riding, as proof of a healthy and alive Malacañang chief executive.
But far from the results they wanted, Go’s photos and video of a “healthy President” drew flak from graphic experts who claimed “technical inconsistencies” in the material farmed out to the media.
Duterte had disappeared from public view before, each time rekindling talk about his declining health.
But while many seemed convinced that Duterte is dead, the president’s most vocal critic former senator Antonio Trillanes doesn’t believe it,
“He’s just lazy,” Trillanes said in a social media post.