MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte’s unscheduled Hong Kong trip with his family on Saturday was just a “much-needed break,” according to a Malacañang official.
It was Duterte’s first out-of-the-country trip with his family since assuming the presidency, Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea said in a statement released on Sunday.
The trip was widely criticized by netizens, some of whom noted that the President had it amid the surging inflation in the Philippines.
“The President has been working since June 30, 2016. Can they not allow him a weekend break?” Medialdea said.
Special Assistant Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go, who was with Duterte in the trip, said the President was scheduled to return to the country Sunday.
“Bago maunahan pa ng mga Fake news kailangan din magpahinga ng Pangulo,” Go said in a Facebook post Saturday. The post was accompanied by photos of Duterte, common-law partner Honeylet Avanceña and daughter Veronica.
The Duterte family’s trip was first reported on VERA Files Saturday with a photo of the President wearing a facemask spotted inside a Uniqlo store in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.
Go, later in the evening, confirmed that the First Family went to Hong Kong along with around 20 security escorts. But in the photos Go shared, Duterte did not wear a facemask.
The news on Duterte’s trip came days after he admitted to spending an hour last Wednesday in the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City for physical tests, a follow-up to the endoscopy and colonoscopy procedures he had gone through weeks ago.
Earlier Duterte said he is suffering from a “bad case” of Barrett’s esophagus, which is associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer./PN
