Nationalist Party deputy leader Mario de Marco has taken to Facebook to explain his absence from the media and public events, saying that his health issues have kept him away.
Dr de Marco wrote as follows:
"My attention has been drawn to certain comments and posts online lamenting that I have of recent been totally absent from the media and the public sphere and that this is giving the impression that it is irrelevant to me and other PN MP’s as to whether the Nationalist Party wins the upcoming general election or not.
"The comments, I would like to think, are fuelled by my absence from the media during most of last December. I spent most of December recovering from surgery I underwent in the UK at the end of November. Upon my return to Malta I resumed my parliamentary and Party duties. Over the last ten days for instance I held a press conference on government’s budget overruns, intervened with the College of Commissioners in Parliament, spoke in parliament on three separate occasions – once on the new legal notice that changed business hours for retailers, another time on the Companies Act and yesterday on the Budget Implementation Act - issued a press statement condemning government on its reckless use of public finances, published a Talking Point article in the Times, submitted over 200 parliamentary questions and met with constituents for various hours. I also participated in various internal Party meetings, spoke last Saturday on Radio 101 and as usual spent Sunday morning touring my constituency. My Facebook posts during the past week reached 65,000 people. So much for being absent and invisible. I have always done my utmost to help my Party in a united, dignified and determined way together with all my colleagues. I ask each one of you to do the same.
"I will be the first to admit that 2015 and 2016 have not been easy years for me for health reasons that I assumed were known to most, but regrettably it seems not to all. I have undergone two major surgeries, other relatively minor interventions, had to get to grips with a facial paralysis, undertook several MRI scans and visited some eight times the UK for my out-patient appointments. In between, I attended to the best of my abilities my Parliamentary, Party and professional duties. Despite the need to use surgical tape to hike up an otherwise paralysed side of my mouth, I have never shied away from my duties or debates. Thankfully the worst is over.
"I believe in a degree of personal privacy and hoped my sporadic but needed and justified absence would go unnoticed or be understood. Regrettably it seems that this was not the case as evident from recent comments online over the last few days."
In response, the OPM chief of staff expressed his empathy with Dr de Marco:
"I understand and empathize with Mario De Marco and know what he is going through. Some battles are not fought in public. Human dignity is subservient to no one."
