MANILA, Philippines — A lawyer asked the Supreme Court to compel President Rodrigo Duterte to make public his latest health bulletin amid his allegedly muddled handling of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in the Philippines.
Lawyer Dino De Leon in a Facebook post Monday evening said that he filed an Extremely Urgent Petition for Mandamus asking the SC to direct Duterte, through the Office of the President and/or Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea, to disclose his medical records, undergo confirmatory tests on them, and release these tests' results.
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This is to confirm whether or not Duterte is still fit to lead the country, said De Leon.
De Leon also asked the SC to set oral arguments on his petition, through teleconferencing, noting the Luzon-wide lockdown that has forced courts to be physically closed.
Transparency on matters regarding the chief executive's health—a matter typically dodged by the Palace—is enshrined in the nation's charter.
READ: Duterte is fit and healthy — Palace
Section 12 of Article VII of the 1987 Constitution reads:
In case of serious illness of the President, the public shall be informed of the state of his health. The members of the Cabinet in charge of national security and foreign relations and the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, shall not be denied access to the President during such illness.
Despite routine assurances offered by Malacañang that the president is "as strong as a horse or as a carabao", Duterte himself has admitted to having a litany of health issues, ranging from a persistent back pain, to Buerger's disease, and a nerve malfunction called Myasthenia gravis.
According to De Leon, the petition "was mainly brought about by my concern as a citizen on the physical and mental fitness of President Duterte to steer the nation as we face the health crisis."
"To recall, President Duterte’s public appearances to address the country on the pandemic were incoherent, unresponsive, and filled with unintelligible rumblings," he said.
"The President appeared to be physically unwell [in recent addresses], and his statements closely resembled those of a drunken monologue."
READ: Duterte's belated address keeps Filipinos up as Bayanihan Act's Monday deadline lapses
Majority of the chief executive's supposedly livestreamed public addresses have been pre-recorded and often released in the late night hours long after their initially scheduled time slots. Malacañang has since stopped committing to scheduled timelines for these livestreams.
President Duterte's address has not yet started 6 hours after it was tentatively set at 4 p.m.
LIVE updates here: https://t.co/qcx94TZnuP pic.twitter.com/FLTMhht0I3— Philstar.com (@PhilstarNews) March 30, 2020
During one memorable address, the president went off-tangent once asked about the status of the country's procurement of testing kits, responding with a lengthy and unintelligible ramble that touched on the Bubonic Plague, the Spanish Flu, the Middle East, the Roman Empire and even witch-hunts.
INTERAKSYON: ‘The Kit’: Duterte’s ramblings at COVID-19 press conference are now creative poems
Another address saw Duterte throwing expletives at human rights lawyer Chel Diokno, going as far as mocking his failed senatorial bid and insulting the size of his teeth.
"Aside from disclosing his mental and physical health records, I call on President Duterte to a) use his usual press conferences to present a comprehensive National Action Plan to fight the COVID-19 Pandemic, instead of talking non-sense and attacking another person’s teeth and b) provide a post-crisis scenario and the government’s points of action," the bar passer wrote in his post.
The lawyer said that such a disclosure would either assure the public about the president's health if he was indeed healthy or inform the populace about any health issues he might have as commanded by the Constitution.
"Is President Duterte still physically and mentally healthy? Is he still the one in-charge of the situation?" De Leon wrote.
"At any rate, there is no harm if the health records of the President are disclosed. [T]here has never been a greater need for a strong and physically fit leader to guide the country through today’s toughest test."
According to a December 2018 survey by the Social Weather Stations, 66% of Filipinos are worried about President Rodrigo Duterte’s health. — with reports from Ratziel San Juan