Panelo: Cancer wouldn’t have stopped Duterte from working

President Rodrigo Duterte does not have cancer, but the disease would not have stopped him from performing his functions as the country's chief executive, Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said Tuesday.

Panelo made the remark after Interior and Local Government Officer-in-Charge Eduardo Año said that Duterte told a Cabinet meeting on Monday night that he tested negative for cancer.

“Sabi niya [Duterte] sa miyembro ng Cabinet, 'Okay ako, negative iyong finding.' Pero alam mo kahit naman assuming na naging positive [for cancer], that will not stop the President from working dahil lahat naman ng sakit ngayon nagagamot,” Panelo said in an interview on state-run Radyo Pilipinas.

“Saka hindi naman nababaldado iyong may sakit eh,” he added.

Duterte disclosed last week that he had gone to the Cardinal Santos Medical Center for an endoscopy and colonoscopy, after Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque and Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go denied that he had gone to the hospital.

Two days after admitting his hospital visit, the President was spotted shopping in Hong Kong with his partner Honeylet and their daughter Kitty.

Under the 1987 Constitution, the public should be informed of the President's state of health in case of serious illness. The 1987 Charter also provides that the members of the Cabinet in charge of national security and foreign relations, as well as the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, “shall not be denied access to the President during such illness.”

Roque also said Tuesday that as the President's condition is not serious, it should remain a private matter. — Llanesca T. Panti/BM, GMA News