MANILA, 3 August 2006 — A daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Rep. Imee Marcos, yesterday urged President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to reveal the true nature of her “illness” and seek proper treatment to avoid the fate that befell her father.
“I make this appeal not as a member of the opposition but out of compassion as a daughter whose father once kept his illness from the public until everything was out of hand. I urge Malacañang to go public with full details of the president’s health. The people deserve to know how serious Mrs. Arroyo’s illness is,” said the fallen leader's eldest daughter, now a member of the Philippine House of Representatives.
She said her family deliberately concealed from the public that her father had a “debilitating illness” because his father’s advisers feared a negative effect it would have on his image as a strongman.
Imee said her father not only concealed her illness but also failed to seek proper medical treatment until it was too late.
The dictator suffered from systemic lupus erythomatosus (SLE), a debilitating illness that affects joints, muscles and other parts of the body.
“It was too painful for us to see our father suffering. He didn’t deserve to be confined in his room and make do with the limited facilities of the Palace. His attending doctors couldn’t even bring in the basic medical equipment because of paranoia,” Imee recalled.
“We could have availed (of) the best medical treatment during that time — but my father’s advisers were anxious that people might know.”
She said President Arroyo could avoid the late dictator’s fate by leveling with the people about the true state of her health.
She said that the current situation was similar to the last three years of her father’s administration.
She said that ‘precarious nature of the country’ now makes efforts to learn about the true nature of the president’s health ‘understandable.’
Arroyo was hospitalized twice last month, first for acute diarrhea and then for influenza. The president has had to drastically cut her palace engagements.
After Arroyo’s second confinement, opposition Rep. Francis Escudero said the 59-year-old president might be hiding her true state of health just to cling to power.
But presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said there was nothing “beneath or beyond the findings on President Arroyo’s health condition, which was a simple case of flu.”
“The president herself has vowed to cut down on her workload and follow a more balanced schedule at the advice of her physicians, and that is all there is to it,” he added.
