PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte remains in excellent health despite having a “brutal schedule” that led him to miss the Independence Day celebrations, Malacañang said Tuesday.
“The President is actually in excellent health except for the fact that his schedules have been brutal. I mean, you have to credit the President considering everything, that he has been actually honoring the military dead, civilian dead, and he has been actually going around,” Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella said in a news briefing.
Abella said Duterte’s hectic schedule was why he was forced to take a break.
“In fact he would have wanted to be at the symbolic [flag] raising and honoring of the dead. However, the fact is he was already doing it for the rest of the week. So I think we need to allow him [to] rest. He was actually on top of the situation but he also needs rest,” he added.
Abella said that Duterte was taking some “private time” as he denied that the President took a leave as a result of medical advice.
It was Vice President Leni Robredo who led the Independence Day rites in Manila after Duterte got “too tired for staying up late.”
Earlier, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano assured the public that there was nothing to worry about the President’s health.