DID YOU HEAR WHAT WE HEARD?

LESS THAN NEWS, MORE THAN RUMOR

DUTERTE HAD ‘MILD STROKE,' SAYS MANILA TIMES'S TATAD

In his Manila Times column dated June 19, Franciso “Kit” Tatad said President Rodrigo Duterte had a “mild stroke,” which affected one of his arms. Duterte was taken to the Cardinal Santos Medical Center last Thursday, June 15 where he underwent “peritonital dialysis” (Google it). He was cleared to fly to Davao City on a minimum altitude flight and surfaced in Agusan on Saturday, June 17.

Tatad’s version, if true, would explain Duterte having disappeared from June 12 to 16, or five straight days. A former press secretary to then president Ferdinand Marcos, Kit also wrote that Cabinet members were given a briefing on Duterte’s health last Friday, June 16, by Cabinet Secretary Leoncio Evasco. Tatad’s leak could be one of the Cabinet secretaries who told it to someone who told someone else who told Kit.

Not true and Tatad was fantasizing, said Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella.

TRAVELLING INCOGNITO

Duterte said that he traveled “incognito” and talked to somebody. Only four people, including the driver, knew about it, he said. With perpetually-present aide Bong Go, Duterte had one other unidentified companion in that cloak-and-dagger trip.

Would the Malacañang press corps believe that, the president traveling, secured by only one other person and presumably the driver? Tatad, a veteran journalist, said that “didn’t wash” and “didn’t add up.” Would the Malacañang press corps swallow that?

NOT UNDERPAID TEACHERS

Public school teachers receive P19,000 to P43,000 a month, depending upon their level, along with allowances, performance bonus and mid-year and year-end bonuses.

Underpaid? Not so, says DepEd chief Leonor Briones who cites “continuing migration” of private school teachers to the public school system. And that, she says, is the problem, apparently to the private educational institutions.

Mag-ambak-ambak yon si De Lima sa selda. They (De Lima and Pangilinan) are only interested to know whether I’m dying or dead.

PRESIDENT DUTERTE