Duterte slams Tatad for claiming he had kidney transplant

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte delivers his speech at the Proclamation and Kick-off Rally of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-LABAN) held in the City of San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan on February 14, 2019. KARL NORMAN ALONZO/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

President Rodrigo Duterte slammed former Senator Francisco “Kit” Tatad for spreading speculations about the state of his health, saying that he will slap him once they encounter each other.

“Ikaw (You) Tatad, you know there’s a border between press freedom and pambabastos ng tao. ‘Pag una kitang makita iwasan mo ako. P***** i** sampalin kita. Maniwala ka sampalin kita sa maraming tao (demeaning a person. If I see you first, you better avoid me. Motherf*cker, I will slap you. Believe me, I will slap you in front of many people),” Duterte said in a speech in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan on Thursday, February 14.

“‘Yung magbiro ka nang ganun na, ‘Si Duterte ano may cancer.’ P***** i**. Ikaw ‘yang may diabetes (When you joke like that, saying, ‘Duterte has cancer?’ Son of a b*tch. You are the one who has diabetes),” he added.

Citing his two unnamed “complementary sources” in his February 11 column for the Manila Times, Tatad claimed that the President underwent a “successful” kidney transplant surgery on January 29, 2019.

According to his “first source,” Tatad said a team led by Dr. Rose Marie Rosete-Liquete, the executive director of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI), performed the procedure on the Chief Executive at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center. His “second source” also told him that “the same doctor performed the same procedure on the same patient on the same day, but in Davao.”

Continuing his tirade against Tatad, Duterte even attacked Tatad’s virility.

“‘Yang kantiyaw mo parang bastos na. Gusto mo talagang subukan kung meron pa kami o wala?

May asawa ka? Ipahiram mo sa akin (That joke of yours seems to be disrespectful. You want to try if we still have it or not? Do you have a wife? Let me borrow her),” he told the former senator.

Malacañang, on Friday, defended Duterte’s remarks against Tatad, stressing that the President was irked by such rumors about his health.

“Well, it’s just a hyperbole, that’s just to dramatize that he’s still virile at his age and he’s pissed off,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a press briefing.

In 2017, Tatad also wrote a column tackling the President’s health. He claimed there that Duterte flew to China through a “private executive plane” to consult doctors at the Fuda Cancer Hospital in Guangzhou. Duterte hit Tatad by joking that he went to China to have a ‘circumcision.

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Duterte, in August 2018, had also denied that he is suffering from kidney failure as alleged by Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria “Joma” Sison.

[READ: Duterte says he is not suffering from kidney problem]