Duterte to Sison: I’m alive, healthy

President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday, Aug. 20, went live on a Facebook account of his closest aide and assured that he is alive and “fairly healthy.”

In a five-minute video posed by Special Assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, Duterte told communist leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison that he was not comatose as the latter had alleged.

The 73-year-old Duterte made the remark after Sison spread rumors that the former has been comatose “since the afternoon or evening of Sunday, Aug. 19.”

Duterte even bragged that he was having dinner with a “beautiful lady” called Vernice.

“I said, I’m alive, fairly healthy and having dinner with the beautiful lady from Davao. She’s Vernice. Only from Harvard. Babalik iyan (She’ll return there). I invited her to discuss many things along the way when she comes back,” the President said in a Facebook Live broadcast on Go’s account.

“I’m still okay. They said I’m comatose? How can I be comatose with a beautiful lady? If I’m comatose and I see Vernice, I will really rise. That’s it,” he added.

Sison, in a Facebook post on Sunday, alleged that Duterte appeared to be sick when the latter attended the national conference of the San Beda Law fraternity Lex Talionis in Davao City on Saturday night, Aug. 18.

Quoting guests at the event, Sison said the darkness of Duterte’s face “had become aggravated from its appearance the other day” and that his walk and handshake “had become more unstable.”