Palace Press Officer Claire Castro fired the first shot Monday morning, dismissing as “fake news” the social media claims made by Sen. Imee Marcos that the President had been ill since November — pointing out that the senator herself had admitted she had not seen her brother in a long time.
“She said that they have not been seeing each other anymore, right? So what does she know? Nothing. What she said is fake news,” Castro said in Filipino. She added: “Let us not amplify fake news peddlers. We do not need them in our society. They are a scourge.”
Hours later, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took the rebuttal a step further — literally. He performed jumping jacks inside the New Executive Building’s briefing room, stepped outside to do more, then ran a short stretch from the NEB toward Malacañang Palace, all in full view of reporters.
“I want to say to our fellow citizens that right now, I made sure that you can see that what they are saying is not true — that it is all lies,” Marcos said in Filipino. “So from now on, those people who told you that I am sick or that I am already incapacitated — remember this. Now you know, they are all liars.”
He then issued a direct challenge to his critics: “I challenge anyone who [is] saying that I am sick, that they come and exercise with me. We will see who is stronger. You come to the gym with me. Tingnan natin kung sino mas malakas magbuhat ng weight.”
On his current health regimen, Marcos said he continues to work out three to four times weekly and has returned to a normal diet. He disclosed that recent routine bloodwork came back normal and that his only hospital visit in roughly three months was for a CT scan to confirm whether a previously diagnosed case of diverticulitis had fully resolved.
“I haven’t been to the hospital for three months and even then it was just to have a CAT scan because the CAT scan — to tell my doctors if the diverticulitis has completely been fixed. And it was and I’m done,” he said.
The President said his current medications are limited to maintenance drugs for gout and hypertension, along with occasional antihistamines for allergies. He expressed skepticism about supplements. “If you eat well and you exercise regularly and you get regular sleep, ‘yun lang,” he said.
Sen. Marcos, in a social media video post, claimed she had known her brother was sick since November — a statement that drew scrutiny given her own acknowledgment that the siblings had not been in contact for some time. She had also added her voice to calls from administration critics for Malacañang to give a transparent public accounting of the President’s condition.
