Says President Duterte only needs to “rejuvenate” after punishing schedule
President Rodrigo Duterte has withdrawn from public duties this week because he needs to rejuvenate, his spokesperson said Thursday.
“He’s just taking some time off to rejuvenate,” presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella told reporters.
Abella said there was no date for when Duterte would resume his official duties, although he emphasized that the president was healthy.
“I’m saying that there’s nothing to worry about in terms of sickness,” he said.
“The president is well.”
Pressed by journalists to state whether Duterte had visited a doctor this week, Abella said: “I’m not privy to those matters but I’m sure he’s checked with his own experts.”
Duterte was last seen in Cagayan de Oro on Sunday, June 11, visiting soldiers wounded in Marawi, where government troops are fighting local terrorists who attempted to carve out a province for the international terrorist group Islamic State.
The fighting is now on its fourth week.
From the city in northern Mindanao, the President went straight to Villamor Airbase in Pasay to lead arrival honors for eight of the 13 soldiers killed in a gunbattle in Marawi that lasted for hours on Friday, June 9.
He then went straight to the Philippine Marine Headquarters in Fort Bonifacio and to the Libingan ng mga Bayani mortuary, both in Taguig, to visit the wake of other fallen marines and condole with their families.
The President ended his hectic schedule then past midnight already.
“It has been really brutal, so it is important to allow him this kind of rest,” Abella said. (Agence France Presse, Eagle News Service)