Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte yesterday made light of his penchant for daytime dozes after his office said “power naps” had caused the gruff leader to miss a number of key meetings at a Singapore summit.
Duterte is attending the annual ASEAN meeting alongside a string of world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) and US Vice President Mike Pence.
However, on Wednesday, the mercurial leader missed four of the 11 meetings he was slated to attend, as well as a gala dinner hosted by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍).
“What’s wrong with my nap?” the 73-year-old told reporters as he arrived at the summit venue yesterday morning for another long day of meetings.
Asked if he felt fully rested, he replied: “Still not good enough, but enough to sustain the endurance for the last days.”
Duterte’s no-shows prompted a statement from his office explaining he had only had three hours of sleep the night before.
“He took power naps to catch [up] on sleep,” Duterte’s spokesman Salvador Panelo said, adding that “some quarters are making a big fuss of the president skipping a few meetings.”
“We assure the nation that his aforementioned absence has nothing to do with his physical health and well-being, which have been the subject of speculation,” he added.
The outspoken leader remains popular at home, even as he pursues a deadly drug war that has seen thousands killed and horrified Western allies, but he has regularly prompted theorising about his health by skipping events or discussing his ailments in public since taking power in 2016.
Duterte has said previously that he suffers from daily migraines and ailments, including Buerger’s disease, an illness that affects the veins and the arteries of the limbs, and is usually due to smoking.
Despite his deadly crackdown on drugs, he also revealed in 2016 that he used to take fentanyl, a powerful opiate painkiller, because of a spinal injury from motorcycle accidents.
He is the oldest person to be elected president in the Philippines, but he is far from the most veteran world leader attending ASEAN.
That accolade goes to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is 20 years older than Duterte and the world’s oldest leader.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not