Philippines President Duterte isolates after COVID-19 exposure

Manolo B. Jara, Correspondent

President Rodrigo Duterte is on quarantine after his exposure to a member of the Malacanang Palace household staff found positive for coronavirus and which explains his absence from the public eye for over a week, his spokesman confirmed on Thursday.

Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles, the acting presidential spokesman, revealed that Duterte’s last exposure to the staff was on Sunday, Jan.30. “The president,” he pointed out, “has since been tested for COVID-19 and while the results of the test came back negative, he is currently observing mandatory quarantine protocols.”

Nograles, however, did not say where the president has been quarantined. Nevertheless, he said that while in isolation, Duterte “continues to work and is in constant communication with his cabinet officers.”

This is to ensure, he explained, that urgent matters are addressed and to monitor the implementation of his directives, particularly with regard to the government’s COVID-19 response. Duterte’s last public appearance was in his two-part taped “Talk to the Nation” address aired on Jan.24 and 25. Since then he has not shown himself in public amid Nograles’ admission that the president also went to the Cardinal Santos Medical Centre in suburban San Juan City, Metro Manila for his “medical checkup.”