Duterte surfaces, quashing rumours about his health

President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday made his first public appearance in two weeks, quashing rumours about his purported failing health and even untimely death.

He squarely addressed questions about his health.

"If you want me to die early, you must pray harder," he said, needling those spreading rumours that he had died in Singapore where he was purportedly flown after a health scare.

The President said he had deliberately avoided appearing in public for two weeks to make fun of his detractors. "I'm like a child that way. The more you provoke me, the more I tease you back."

He said he was inside Malacanang, the sprawling compound that houses the president's office and residence, the whole time. He said he was working there and, on some days after midnight, jogged, rode a motorcycle and played golf. "I don't see anything wrong with riding a motorcycle at 2am. I'm not taking the people's time," he said.

Mr Duterte had been out of public view for so long that his mere appearance at his weekly televised address last night was news in itself.

The last time the 76-year-old leader was seen in public was on March 29, when he was present to receive a shipment of a million doses of a coronavirus vaccine made by Chinese firm Sinovac.

He then took a break for the Holy Week period.

He was expected to resurface on April 7 for his weekly televised address. But that was abruptly cancelled following reports that more than 100 of his bodyguards had tested positive for Covid-19.

That same day, his daughter, Davao Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, confirmed that she had flown to Singapore a day earlier with her son, a nanny and a bodyguard. She declined to say why she had made the trip.

That sparked speculation that Mr Duterte himself could be in Singapore after suffering a mild stroke.

Purported photos of an air ambulance that supposedly flew him to Singapore surfaced, and the hashtag #nasaanangpangulo (Where is the president?) started trending on social media.

By Saturday, the nation was abuzz with rumours that he was dead.

"He is not sick," Mr Duterte's spokesman Harry Roque said at a news briefing yesterday, when asked if the government planned to issue a "medical bulletin" to dispel speculation about the President's health.

Former senator Antonio Trillanes, one of Mr Duterte's harshest critics, said in a post on Twitter that he was "not buying" into speculation that Mr Duterte was sick.

"He's been doing that for the past five years. He will disappear, then they'd float their own rumour. Then he will emerge like a conquering hero and burn all those who were taken for a ride," Mr Trillanes said.

"He's a narcissist," he added. "He craves attention."

Mr Duterte yesterday presided over a meeting of his ministers overseeing the government's efforts to contain another coronavirus surge, far worse than what the country experienced last year.

The government on Sunday lifted a lockdown that had kept a quarter of the nation's population - some 25 million people - inside their homes for two months, even though the number of Covid-19 infections remained alarmingly high.

Health experts and data analysts warned that lifting strict quarantine restrictions this early could lead to another surge.

But Mr Duterte and his aides have insisted that signs pointed to Covid-19 cases falling in the next two weeks.

The Philippines has been tallying some 10,000 daily cases on average since last week.

With more than 876,000 infections and around 15,000 dead, the country has the second-worst Covid-19 figures in South-east Asia, after Indonesia.