PNP group pleads with Comrades to encourage Phillips to step away
Published:Sunday | April 12, 2020 | 12:00 AM
A group within the People's National Party (PNP) has written a letter to the officers, executives and members of the party's National Executive Council, urging them to encourage the party president and Leader of the Opposition, Dr Peter Phillips, to step away from leadership at this time and fully recover.
Dr Phillips, last week, revealed that he had been diagnosed with stage three curable colon cancer and has done surgery to remove the mass. He will be undergoing chemotherapy to further treat the disease.
In the letter penned by the chairman of the Albion Progressive Group in the Llandewey Division of St Thomas, Marvin Clarke, he urged the NEC to:
"Do the honourable and dignified thing and advise our leader to take the time left to spend every fleeting moment with his family, close friends and associates as he embarks on this new journey in his sojourn; 'cancer treatment is 'personal, private and painful.' 'Any cancer has the ability to kill you,'" he wrote, making reference to a quote by former president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, Howard Mitchell, in a story published in today's Sunday Gleaner.
Clarke continued: "Officers, executives members, NEC members, councillor's members, supporters, let us encourage our leader, one who has served us with distinction, to take the time to spend with his family, close friends and associates because 'cancer treatment is personal, private and painful'. 'Any cancer has the ability to kill you."
Praising Phillips for his decades of service to the party, Clarke noted that the 70-year-old Opposition Leader now has a COVID-19 pandemic to consider and preparations for general elections, constitutionally due in 2021, while leading the party and battling cancer.
He said the PNP should allow the party's constitutional process to take place and a new leader selected.
He said the PNP will not fall part if Phillips steps away and will be no more divided than it already is.
"The Peoples National Party will live on as 'one PNP, rising unitedly, powerful and stronger together', ” Clarke said.
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