President Rodrigo Duterte’s allies at the Senate have also debunked reports that he is in a state of coma.
“He’s healthy,” Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said in a Viber message to reporters on Monday.
“Why believe in the report of someone hundreds of kilometers away in Europe?” he added, apparently referring to Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison.
It was Sison who posted on Facebook the alleged reports of Duterte being in a coma supposedly since Sunday. But Palace officials immediately refuted Sison’s claim.
READ: Duterte in ‘kama’ not ‘coma’ – Bong Go
Pimentel and Duterte both belong to the ruling PDP-Laban as party president and chairman, respectively.
Senator Cynthia Villar, who is part of the majority bloc in the Senate, also doubted the report on Duterte’s health.
“I was in Davao Friday and ang saya-saya niya (he is very happy). Galit na galit na naman sa mga corrupt paano namang nagkasakit iyon (He was so angry with corrupt officials, so how could you not get sick with that)?” Villar said in an interview at the Senate.
“Ganoon naman talaga kapag presidente ka (That’s the reality if you were President), that is expected. But I don’t think it’s true and we should not be worried about it,” she added.
Asked if there was a need to release a medical bulletin on the President’s health, Villar said, “No. Nagbago na ba kayo sa fake news (Haven’t you gotten used to fake news)?” /ee