Presidential duty to appear and talk to us

WHEN Rodrigo Roa Duterte became president and he impressed on us that he was unconventional and radically different, we did not expect that this included his being strange about not showing his face to directly talk to the nation at a most critical time.

For someone who is touted to be a “tatay” or a father, he seems to opt to ask his “alalays” or assistants to inform his children that he is well. And he would do this even when there is now a snowballing suspicion that something bad has happened to him. A good and loving father would not let his children go through that pain in the same manner that a good and loving president would not subject the citizens of his country to such deliberate insensitivity if not total irresponsibility. A good president would come out, in person, to directly address all of us and assure us that he is well and safe, and that he is doing everything to make us all well and safe particularly during this time of the pandemic.