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Department of Health Secretary Teodoro Herbosa (left) stands alongside Rotary Club of Manila president Rafael M. Alunan III during RC Manila’s 3rd Weekly Membership Meeting at the Manila Polo Club last Thursday, 20 July 2023. Secretary Herbosa was the Club’s guest speaker during the meeting. Photographs by Dianne Bacelonia for the daily tribune

Teodoro Javier Herbosa received a call from the Office of the President about a year after President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. assumed the Presidency. The caller from the Palace said the President would like to see him in Malacañang, but it was not made clear what the former would like to meet with him about.

The night before his meeting with the President, Herbosa wrote an 8-point agenda about what he’d like to do in the department, just in case he’d be asked to be Health Secretary.