So what really ails the President?

Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

Trust Martin on this. Or should we?

Malacañang on Tuesday maintained President Duterte was just making up stories about his health when he disclosed that a doctor went to see him in Malacañang after he felt pain in his heart.

But Ernesto Abella, Mr. Duterte’s spokesperson, gave a vague statement on the President’s real medical status, telling reporters to just “go by” the explanation of Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar.

Andanar, whose office had been criticized for providing bum steer to the media, claimed the President just “made up a story” when he said in a speech on Monday that a certain Doctor Del Rosario had visited him to check on his health condition.

“Like I said, categorically, let’s go by what Secretary Martin said. OK?” Abella told a regular news conference at the Palace.

Medical checkup

Pressed if the President had a medical checkup, he said: “I will not say those things. All I’m saying is that let’s go by what Secretary Martin said. All right? Thank you.”

He then echoed what Mr. Duterte had been saying repeatedly—that he has health problems like any other septuagenarian.

“So let’s go by that. Nothing dramatic… He is generally aware of the interest that his statements make,” Abella said.

Addressing a gathering of some of the country’s biggest taxpayers, the President revealed that a certain Doctor Del Rosario from Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City checked him up before he attended his two official events on Monday.

He said this was the reason he was late for the launch of the “Hardin ng Lunas” livelihood project at the Presidential Security Guard compound in Malacañang and for the program of the Bureau of Internal Revenue at the Philippine International Convention Center.

Pain in the heart

Mr. Duterte, who once lambasted a journalist for asking about his health during the campaign, said he had to undergo “EKG,” also called ECG, or electrocardiogram, a medical test to determine the electrical activity of the heart.

“I was late. Pardon me. I had an EKG because I was not feeling well. I told (the doctor), ‘I feel pain in my heart,’” he said.

“When Doctor Del Rosario from Cardinal Santos arrived, she brought with her the EKG (machine). She said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with your heart,’” the President said.

“It might just be EJK. Your ailment is extrajudicial (killings),” the President quoted the doctor as telling him in jest.

Mr. Duterte, 72, previously admitted that he was taking cancer pills to relieve unbearable pain in his spine despite a warning from his doctor that he could lose his cognitive ability and that he was already “abusing the drug.”

Barrett’s esophagus

He also said he was diagnosed with Barrett’s esophagus, a serious complication of gastroesophageal reflux disease that involved changes in the tissue lining the esophagus.

In his speech, the President took lightly the claim of former Sen. Francisco Tatad that he had visited a hospital in China during the holiday break to seek treatment for his cancer.