Palace: Marcos well amid health speculations

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos is “definitely well,” Malacañang said yesterday amid rumors on social media.

“He is fine,” Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said.

Social media users have questioned the President’s Easter Sunday post, supposedly an old photo with his family.

Marcos spent the Holy Week break in his home province, Ilocos Norte.

Castro urged the public to remain vigilant against fake news.

“I think mainstream media should prevail over baseless social media posts. Let’s not be too quick to believe them. There’s so much fake news, even I myself have been a victim of it,” she said.

Marcos yesterday skipped an event with returning overseas Filipino workers in Quezon City in the morning.

At the Palace in the afternoon, however, the President attended the oath-taking ceremony of the Vice Mayors’ League of the Philippines’ national executive officers.

Marcos will meet today with the Development Budget Coordination Committee to hear its recommendations on possibly reducing or suspending the excise tax on petroleum products.

The President’s health has been the subject of rumors following his hospitalization in January due to diverticulitis, a condition he described as “a common complaint” of people who are “heavily stressed” and growing old.