Binay laughs off dialysis rumor

Vice President Jejomar C. Binay is “having a laugh” following persistent talk that he is undergoing dialysis for a supposedly serious kidney ailment, according to his media officer.

“It’s definitely not true… and it’s totally ridiculous,” Joey Salgado told the Inquirer.

A dialysis is a medical procedure where a person’s blood is cleansed outside the body using a machine called a dialyzer because the patient’s kidneys cannot do it for him.

According to Salgado, the rumor that Binay was undergoing dialysis “is an old story.”

“This nonsense was first circulated by a perennial loser in the Makati City elections when Vice President Binay was still the mayor,” he said. Binay was Makati mayor for 24 years.

Salgado asked that the retired politician’s name be kept secret.

He said they were “surprised that this health issue is being resurrected. It seems it’s never too early for dirty tricks.”

“Who’s reviving the issue? Eh, ’di sino pa? (Well, who else?),” he said, alluding to Binay’s foes in the last election.

The 69-year-old Binay, also the presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers’ concerns, government housing czar and head of the state task force against human trafficking,  has “no health problems,” Salgado said.

“He doesn’t smoke and he takes vitamins regularly. He drinks an occasional glass of wine in the evenings. I have seen younger men who can’t keep up with his pace. Kasama na ako doon (You can count me among them). He also has gym equipment at home,” he said.

To prove that he has no health problems, Binay was “inviting Inquirer editors and the source of the misinformation to join him in his morning walks or in a game of badminton,” Salgado said.

He said Binay “walks every day except if he has an early flight (for a local or foreign trip).”