An alleged motorcycle riding accident has raised the level of concern about President Rodrigo Duterte’s state of health, despite the fact that he sustained no real injuries and did not have to be hospitalized after the reported accident. DU30 allegedly fell off his bike inside Malacañang compound while reaching for a shoe, and suffered minor scratches around his left arm and knee, according to presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo and Sen. Christopher “Bong” Go. Another version of the story quoted presidential security sources as saying something else, thereby casting doubt on the integrity of the Panelo-Bong Go version of the “accident.”

The real truth of the matter remains unsettled. Ten days earlier, while visiting Russia, DU30 admitted having contracted myasthenia gravis, described as “a rare autoimmune disease that destroys muscle receptors and can result in the drooping of the eyelids or overall weakness.”  This was but DU30’s latest admitted ailment; he has long had a list of ailments, which I myself had written about without a successful denial from the Palace.

In a column on the Philippine Daily Inquirer several days ago, Prof. Solita Collas-Monsod, a former Cabinet member, asked whether DU30 was fit to run the country, given his many admitted ailments. Would you trust him to run your company? she asked.  These ailments include Buerger’s disease; Barrett’s esophagus; severe migraines; “spinal issues” related to a motorcycling accident the 74-year-old president had when he was 68; the unexplained darkening of his face; his heavy use of sleeping pills and Fentanyl, the painkiller said to be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine; constipation, which he allegedly inherited from his mother; and myasthenia gravis, which he inherited from his grandfather.

Monsod’s column also highlighted Dr. Natividad Dayan’s psychiatric findings of serious anti-social narcissistic personality disorder, which in 2000 became the basis of Pasig City Judge Pablo Roxas’s decision declaring DU30’s marriage to Elizabeth Zimmerman, the mother of his three adult children, null and void.

DU30 has not reacted to the Monsod column, in sharp contrast to his reaction to a column I wrote on the front page of the Manila Times in February, which referred to a secret medical procedure he was said to have undergone at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. Reacting to that story, DU30 threatened to “slap me in public,” and to violate the dignity of my 75-year-old wife.

The Times failed to protest this violent attack against press freedom and on my person as a writer. To the contrary, the paper’s “owner,” who is known as DU30’s “special envoy for international public relations,” asked me to write a “final column” and then refused to publish that column after it was written. I now write online at this address, pressone.ph.

The myasthenia gravis and the alleged motorbike accident do not make DU30 any sicker than he had been these last three years. I would be the last person to say he is a “dying man,” even though I would be the first person to point out that my opinion on this matter has no medical value whatsoever.  

But facts are facts, and an unsigned “call to action” has started circulating among military retirees, calling attention to DU30’s state of health, and to the duty of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to be ready to act as the “protector of the people and the State.”  It is not a very subtle call to military intervention. 

One must presume this document has already reached the President. The proposed course of action is “military withdrawal of support” for the President and Commander in Chief, as happened during the time of President Joseph Estrada in 2001 when the late Gen. Angelo Reyes, as AFP Chief of Staff, led such withdrawal of support in favor of then Vice President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. The current demoralization of the police and the loss of public confidence in the organization, after the firing of PNP Chief Oscar Albayalde for his alleged involvement in the recycling of confiscated illegal drugs by the so-called “ninja cops,” adds a lot of fuel into the fire.

One thing that appears to work in DU30’s favor though is the military commanders’ reported disdain for a coup d’etat, unless the entire AFP moves as an institution. Another thing is their serious doubt about Vice President Leni Robredo’s readiness and ability to fill in DU30’s position. This was not the case during Estrada’s ouster: GMA was a hyper-active coup participant. But it seems to have become the biggest issue among those who are otherwise being told that DU30 had lost the moral right and ability to govern.

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