Mayor details cancer in reply to Duterte

Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña. (File photo JUNJIE MENDOZA / Cebu Daily News)

CEBU CITY — It’s not a bag of shit, but urine.

Mayor Tomas Osmeña, taking to social media to respond to President Rodrigo Duterte, admitted he carried a bag at the right side of his body, but it did not contain feces, as Mr. Duterte claimed in a speech at the celebration of Mandaue City’s 49th Charter Day on August 30.

Osmeña, a cancer survivor, wrote on his Facebook post that what he carried was a urostomy bag.

“I have never hidden the fact that I had to fight urinary bladder cancer 10 years ago,” Osmeña wrote in his post addressed to “my fellow Cebuanos.”

‘I will slap you’

The message was posted on August 31, a day after the President devoted five minutes of his speech to rant against Osmeña for the mayor’s comments on police failure to stop crimes and his supposed tagging of Mr. Duterte as a drug protector.

“I will slap you, wait and see,” Mr. Duterte said, referring to Osmeña in his Mandaue speech.

“And the shit you are bringing with you inside the plastic bag in your belly,” the President added.

Osmeña said he would not hesitate to resign as mayor if he failed to discharge his duties.

The mayor’s post was accompanied by photos—a close-up shot of the bag in his shirt and a February 23, 2009 photo of the mayor and his wife, Margot.

Another photo showed a bald Osmeña, apparently the result of his chemotherapy treatment at that time.

He also showed a screenshot of his August 9, 2016, post announcing he was in remission.

Mr. Duterte’s rant against Osmeña came as a surprise since, on August 21, in a speech before members of the League of Municipalities, he even thanked Osmeña for supporting him.

‘Braggart’

The President changed tunes in Mandaue.

“He is the braggart who has been in politics for a long time,” Mr. Duterte said of Osmeña.

“You son of a bitch!” the President added.