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DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 1 July) – Former president Rodrigo R. Duterte said he would catch up on lost sleep after his six-year term ended at noon of June 30. In his first public appearance as a private citizen during the “Salamat Tatay Digong, A Homecoming Concert” at NCCC Mall VP on Thursday, Duterte talked about the burdens and problems he faced as president which only allowed him to sleep from four to five hours a day. “Unsa man imo plano? Matulog ko og otso oras. Tinuod. Tanaw nako way presidente makatulog og otso oras pukawon kana sa problema (What’s my plan? To sleep for eight hours a day. This is true. I think that no president can sleep for eight hours a day because you would be awakened by problems),” he said. Duterte said he would start his day in Malacañang Palace by going through voluminous paperwork until the late evening, but added he had sometimes worked until the weeHours of the morning for his cabinet meetings, which started at 2 a.m. He would sleep at 7 or 8 a.m. As a lawyer, he said that he himself studied all the documents before signing them. A day before stepping down from his position, Duterte recalled that he spent his day signing more documents.
He said many documents were left unsigned but added he was leaving those to his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. The 77-year-old former president added that he lacked sleep even on his last morning in the Palace as he woke up too early to receive Marcos as the new chief executive. “We’re always deprived of this sleep. Even if I was here in Davao, I had to work and sign papers until the evening. It’s always not enough,” he said. Before he became the country’s 16th President, Duterte served as mayor from 1988 to 1998, representative of the first district from 1998 to 2001, mayor from 2001 to 2010, vice mayor from 2010 to 2013, and mayor 2013 to 2016. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)