The estranged sister of Ferdinand Marcos Jr has publicly accused her younger brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jnr, of using drugs, triggering a political storm around the Philippines’ political establishment and one of the country’s most powerful clans.
Senator Imee Marcos said at a rally on Monday night that Marcos Jr had been using cocaine and cannabis since they were children and the addiction had grown worse since he married first lady Marie Louise Araneta Marcos.
The senator, an ally of her brother’s predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, claimed that the president’s cocaine addiction was the cause of “a flood of corruption, the lack of direction and wrong decisions, the absence of accountability and justice” under his rule. “Ever since Bongbong and I were kids, the family already knew about him,” the senator said, referring to the president by his pet name. Imee Marcos and Ferdinand Marcos Jr are the children of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.
She was speaking at a rally organised by an influential church group to protest against a flood-control corruption scandal involving powerful lawmakers and top government officials. “Back then, because our father was still around, he wasn’t my responsibility yet. As he grew older, it became more concerning. I knew he was using drugs,” she told the public rally attended by almost half a million people in Manila Park.
It is not the first time Mr Marcos has been accused of using drugs. In 2021, when he was still just a presidential aspirant, his spokesperson showed two reports from a private hospital and the national police laboratory that stated Marcos Jr had tested negative for cocaine and methamphetamine.
The senator also implicated the presidential son and House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos in the issue, saying he allegedly offered drugs to her children and their other relatives. She called on the president to seek treatment to “rid your system of drugs”, saying she could not bear to lose her brother.
