Duterte to spend 75th birthday isolated from family, friends

President Rodrigo Duterte will mark his 75th birthday on Saturday sans any family member and friends as he is unable to fly home to Davao City on his special day.

Col. Jesus Durante Jr., chief of the Presidential Security Group (PSG), said the President was expected to stay in Malacañang amid the ongoing Luzon-wide enhanced community quarantine.

“So far, he will just stay here. No guests, since the family members are all in Davao City,” said Durante on Friday.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo remarked that the President’s special day was amid “foreboding and grim circumstances” that threaten to throw the country in “the precipice of annihilation.”

Self-quarantine

Panelo expressed his wishes for Mr. Duterte’s longevity and continued good health and guidance, as he “safely navigates our people through the rampaging waves of this treacherous ocean of a dreadful disease.”

Mr. Duterte will observe a self-quarantine as he marks his 75th birthday on Saturday inside the Malacañang complex upon the advice of his physicians and the PSG, Panelo said.

“PRRD (Mr. Duterte) will quarantine himself on his birthday tomorrow following the advice of the PSG as well as doctors for his protection following his exposure to some officials who themselves have been exposed to a confirmed COVID-19 victim,” Panelo said in a statement.

He reassured that Mr. Duterte would continue with his work while under quarantine.

“His only birthday wish is for our countrymen to stay home and the total eradication of the coronavirus,” Panelo added.

On March 16, Mr. Duterte placed Luzon under an enhanced community quarantine and restricted all forms of travel and public transport.

Keep it simple

Earlier this week, he signed Republic Act No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, which declares a state of national emergency and gives him additional powers for the government’s COVID-19 response.

In past years, the President has shunned celebrating his birthday, saying he preferred to keep it simple by spending it with his family and grandchildren.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, the spokesperson of the Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases, quipped that Cabinet officials would just have to blow a “virtual birthday cake” to mark Mr. Duterte’s birthday.

This was because a handful of Cabinet members decided to go on self-quarantine after being exposed to a lawmaker who tested positive for COVID-19.

“We’ll just send our virtual birthday greetings to the President. We really need his leadership in these times. Our birthday gift to him is to defeat COVID-19,” Nograles said over state-run PTV 4.