No cakes or serenades BIRTHDAY BOY RODY DUTERTE WILL ‘DISAPPEAR’ FOR ONE DAY

By Manny Piñol

There will be no “Mañanita,” no birthday cakes, no candles to be blown and definitely no lavish celebration for Presidential frontrunner Rody Duterte when he marks his 71st birthday tomorrow.

“Mawala man na sya ug usa ka adlaw,” said his trusted aide, Christopher “Bong” Go when asked how Duterte would celebrate his birthday tomorrow, March 28. (He usually disappears for one day.)

Duterte, born in Maasin, Southern Leyte to parents who came from Cebu and Mindanao, has always led a frugal life even before he joined politics in 1986.

Since becoming OIC Vice Mayor and later Mayor of Davao City in 1986, Duterte has shunned birthday gifts from businessmen preferring to be with his family and visiting his favorite charities.

Over the years he has been in public service, Duterte has spent special occasions with children suffering from cancer who stay at the House of Hope, a temporary shelter for the children from all over Mindanao who are being treated at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC), formerly known as the Davao Regional Hospital.

On his birthdays and Christmas Days, he would visit the cancer-stricken children at the House of Hope and bring them gifts, toys for the boys and dolls for the girls which he would pick personally from the stores in Davao City.

Dr. Mae Dolendo, head of the House of Hope, said Duterte would even show the cancer-stricken boys how to operate the toys.

“He is like a father to all of them. He would cry when a child dies but he comes back to celebrate with them the Survivor’s Day,” she said.

Survivor’s Day is the day when children who survived cancer would come back to the House of Hope and provide hope and inspiration to the other children, many of whom would never make it.

Tomorrow, Duterte will mark his 71st birthday. It will just be another ordinary day for him.

But for the children of the House of Hope, it will be a very special day. It will be the day when they get to see and be with their “Angkol,” “Daddy,” and “Papa,” the man who gives them hope and happiness even as they struggle with pain.

(Photo caption: Rody Duterte visits cancer-stricken children in the House of Hope. Courtesy of Dr. Mae Dolendo, House of Hope)