MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. refused to respond on Monday to an allegation by his estranged sister, a senator, that he has been a longtime drug addict whose cocaine dependence has undermined his governance, saying with a somber tone that he didn’t want to discuss a family rift in public.
Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro has said that Sen. Imee Marcos’ accusations against her own brother before a huge religious rally in Manila last week were “a web of lies,” and may have been a desperate attempt to distract ongoing investigations into a corruption scandal that may implicate her opposition allies in the Senate.
Aides have said in the past that Marcos Jr. had tested negative for cocaine and methamphetamine. When asked to respond to his elder sister’s allegations, the president briefly paused and then said in a televised news conference: “It’s anathema to talk about family matters generally in public. We do not like to show our dirty linen in public.”
The president suggested that something was troubling her sister. “The lady that you see talking on TV is not my sister and that view is shared by our cousins, friends, that it’s not her,” he said without elaborating.
“That’s why we are worried, we are very worried about her. I hope she feels better soon,” the president said. When asked if he plans to talk to her, Marcos said that he and his sister “no longer travel in the same circles, political or otherwise.”
Marcos, 68, and his sister are children of then dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who was overthrown in an army-backed but largely peaceful “people power” uprising in 1986 after an authoritarian era that was notorious for human rights and political repression and plunder. The dictator died in exile in Hawaii in 1989. His family returned to the Philippines in 1991 and slowly regained a political foothold.
Marcos Jr. won the presidency in 2022 with a landslide margin in one of the greatest political comebacks in the Philippines.
In a speech Monday night before a huge rally by a religious group in a Manila park, Imee Marcos said that her brother’s drug addiction allegedly started when their father was still a president and has continued to this day. She claimed it has affected his health and ability to govern.
Imee Marcos is a high-profile ally of her brother’s harsh critic and predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte.
Duterte was arrested on an International Criminal Court warrant in March and flown to and detained in the Netherlands for alleged crimes against humanity over his brutal anti-drug crackdowns that left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead. Duterte has denied any wrongdoing.
Duterte’s family and allies, including Imee Marcos, have blamed Marcos Jr. for what they claim was the ex-president’s illegal arrest and detention by the global court. Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, is also one of the most vocal critics of the current president but is a close ally of Imee Marcos.
Philippine president refuses to discuss family matters in public after sister’s drug allegation
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Philippine president refuses to discuss family matters in public after sister’s drug allegation
- Presidential sister says Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been a longtime drug addict whose cocaine dependence has undermined his governance
Rubio says technical talks with Denmark, Greenland officials over Arctic security have begun
- US Secretary of State on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland
WASHINGTON: Technical talks between the US, Denmark and Greenland over hatching an Arctic security deal are now underway, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday.
The foreign ministers of Denmark and Greenland agreed to create a working group aimed at addressing differences with the US during a Washington meeting earlier this month with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio.
The group was created after President Donald Trump’s repeated calls for the US to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, in the name of countering threats from Russia and China — calls that Greenland, Denmark and European allies forcefully rejected.
“It begins today and it will be a regular process,” Rubio said of the working group, as he testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “We’re going to try to do it in a way that isn’t like a media circus every time these conversations happen, because we think that creates more flexibility on both sides to arrive at a positive outcome.”
The Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday’s talks focused on “how we can address US concerns about security in the Arctic while respecting the red lines of the Kingdom.” Red lines refers to the sovereignty of Greenland.
Trump’s renewed threats in recent weeks to annex Greenland, which is a semiautonomous territory of a NATO ally, has roiled US-European relations.
Trump this month announced he would slap new tariffs on Denmark and seven other European countries that opposed his takeover calls, only to abruptly drop his threats after a “framework” for a deal over access to the mineral-rich island was reached, with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte’s help. Few details of the agreement have emerged.
After stiff pushback from European allies to his Greenland rhetoric, Trump also announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week that he would take off the table the possibility of using American military force to acquire Greenland.
The president backed off his tariff threats and softened his language after Wall Street suffered its biggest losses in months over concerns that Trump’s Greenland ambitions could spur a trade war and fundamentally rupture NATO, a 32-member transatlantic military alliance that’s been a linchpin of post-World War II security.
Rubio on Wednesday appeared eager to downplay Trump’s rift with Europe over Greenland.
“We’ve got a little bit of work to do, but I think we’re going to wind up in a good place, and I think you’ll hear the same from our colleagues in Europe very shortly,” Rubio said.
Rubio during Wednesday’s hearing also had a pointed exchange with Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, about Trump repeatedly referring to Greenland as Iceland while at Davos.
“Yeah, he meant to say Greenland, but I think we’re all familiar with presidents that have verbal stumbles,” Rubio said in responding to Kaine’s questions about Trump’s flub — taking a veiled dig at former President Joe Biden. “We’ve had presidents like that before. Some made a lot more than this one.”
