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MANILA, Philippines – Secretary of National Defense Delfin Lorenzana fainted during the Independence Day rites at Luneta Park in Manila on Sunday morning, June 12.
Videos shared by media outlets on the ground showed 73-year-old Lorenzana wobbling towards an ambulance with shared photos later showing him on a stretcher.
In a statement, the Department of National Defense (DND) said Lorenzana fainted due to fatigue after back-to-back engagements in Singapore, Korea, and different parts of the Philippines.
“His hectic schedule during the last few weeks and the extreme temperatures in Luneta earlier today may have resulted in his fatigue,” DND spokesman Arsenio Andolong said in the statement.
This is the first reported incident of Lorenzana fainting at a public event. President Rodrigo Duterte led the ceremony.
As of 11 am on Sunday, Lorenzana was already “stable”, according to DND Head Executive Assistant Peter Paul Galvez.
“We will first let him rest because he’s sleep-deprived,” Galvez said in a text message to reporters.
Lorenzana, in a post on Twitter on Sunday afternoon, said his “lack of rest and sleep from my recent successive international security engagements may have taken its toll on me,” and also added the heat at Luneta as a potential contributing factor.
“But as the saying goes, a true soldier always gets up quickly after a fall. I’m fine now. Just resting since the results of the tests conducted earlier are okay,” Lorenzana went on to say. – Rappler.com
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