Focus shifts to health as bets head for long grind

With the election campaign off to a start,  the focus now shifts to the health of presidential candidates.

Will they survive the grueling task of having to reach even the remotest parts of the country to woo voters?

Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Mar Roxas said he was willing to release his medical records to the public to prove his fitness for the presidency.

“Why not? I am in favor of honesty and transparency so the people will know,” he told reporters after attending the general assembly of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines at Marriott Hotel in Pasay City.

“If I did pushups here, it might be another issue. So let’s not do that,” the 58-year-old former interior secretary said in jest. “But I can say that I am in good health,” he said.

The health of the presidential aspirants as an election issue is made more resonant by the recent demise of OFW party-list Rep. Roy Señeres Sr.

Just three days after withdrawing from the presidential race, Señeres, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and former chair of the National Labor Relations Commission,  died of cardiopulmonary arrest after a long bout with diabetes on Monday. He was 68.

At least one other presidential candidate is known to have health issues: the 70-year-old Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, a lung cancer survivor.

But the feisty senator, unlike Roxas, is reluctant to open her health records to public scrutiny.

Besides Santiago, three other presidential candidates are in their 70s—Vice President Jejomar Binay is 73, while Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is 70.

Sen. Grace Poe is the youngest presidential candidate at 47.

Binay made it perfectly clear he was fit and could get through the grueling three-month-long nationwide campaign.

Asked what he was doing to keep healthy since he tended to campaign for long hours, Binay said he got his strength probably because he had been raised poor.

He also disclosed the results of his latest medical examinations.

“[The result of] my medical examinations is very good and my doctor said I could even take up badminton again,” he said.

But Binay said he had no plans to take up badminton again because he had injured himself several times while playing the game.

“But just to emphasize it that I’m really in good health,” said Binay, who had previously been rumored of ailing from lupus or some kidney disease.

Sen. Nancy Binay recalled rumors that her father was ill were fueled some years ago when he was spotted at the Makati Medical Center for three months.

She said people did not know then that her father went to the hospital to hear daily Mass with her brother, former Makati City Mayor Junjun Binay, who was keeping vigil on his sick wife  who passed away later on after giving birth.

In his first campaign sortie, Binay and his vice presidential candidate Sen. Gregorio Honasan, along with fellow candidates under the United Nationalist Alliance party, went barnstorming into the province for the entire hot day Wednesday in an open “caravan” stopping in San Pedro, Biñan, Sta. Rosa, Cabuyao and Calamba.