President Rodrigo Duterte said on Thursday that the rumors about his ailing health and that he has a cancer or kidney problems because of ‘burnt face’, is not true.
Having burnt face or neck is normally associated with kidney problem.
Duterte heckled Joma Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) who is now in exile at the Netherlands for exacerbating speculation about his health condition.
His dark and burnt on his face is not because of cancer or kidney problems, but because he “likes to roam in the mountains”, Duterte explained.
According to Duterte, he intentionally allowed his people to spread rumors that he was dying because I knew that Joma would feast on the bait.
Sison apparently got his source in Malacañang that Duterte’s health is deteriorating and even pointed out social media that the “darkness on Duterte’s face had worsened and aggravated from its appearance the other day and that the way he walks and handshakes become visibly unstable.”
To disprove the rumor being fanned in the social media by Sison, President Duterte made his public appearance on Tuesday night in Cebu and he appeared to be in good spirits, though he was seen wiping his nose several times.
Then in speech on Thursday, Duterte took his venom out on Sison in his long-running word war.
“Look at Sison, an ideologist. Look at what he is now. Instead of focusing on the betterment of the movement, he is saying things like my face looks burnt,” Duterte said obviously irked.
He went on, “He (Sison) is a coward and has abandoned his comrades by letting himself in exile in the Netherlands since the late 1980s.”
Not yet contented with his tirades, Duterte came up with his own diagnosis on Sison’s health condition by saying, “What’s wrong with Sison is he is suffering from cancer of the colon, the intestines. He has undergone operation several times but the cancer has spread to his pancreas. Yet he still boasts that I’m comatose.” Then profanity follows…
In closing, Duterte left a message for Sison, “You’re the one who’s dying, arrogant. I will let you go back to the mountains tomorrow. Tell your comrades. Ask them what else they need because progress is already here. And you can’t topple the government. You can’t even lead a single barangay.”
Then Duterte chided Sison, “You are a freeloader. You are the kind of person who would go with you to receive everything for free.”