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.
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