By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
The Marcos family’s unraveling has gone from disgraced to scandalous with Senator Imee Marcos’s tearful admission that her brother, President Bongbong Marcos, has been fighting a lifelong drug addiction.
Her emotional disclosure at Day 2 of the Iglesia ni Cristo rally in Manila has since been called fake news by First Lady Liza Araneta Marcos, who emphasized that it is as fake as the presidential elder sister’s alleged surgically fixed face.
What we are witnessing is a self-destructing First Family as the nation reacts to these denigrating claims – some with relief, others with fury, and some with empathy.
For Marcos loyalists, this development is particularly painful. One such faithful would be former lawyer Larry Gadon, who obviously had a hard time watching his friend, Sen. Imee, throw mud at her brother, the President. I could imagine what a torture it was for the fierce Marcos loyalist to have watched the lady senator burn her brother’s image to the ground.
Gadon fired back, asking “Saan na napunta ang utak mo, Imee?” He exposes that the Discayas are a donor to the senator’s campaign. He accuses her of destroying their family name, claiming it was her way of acting out since the instruction of her brother to crack down on multi-billion-peso flood mitigation scam projects.
The former lawyer claimed the lady senator supposedly has a “bagman” in the Department of Public Works and Highways in Region 1, and this official is set to spill the beans soon. Gadon also claims Bongbong Marcos’s elder sister is deeply miffed because she supposedly lobbied certain allies of hers to be placed in top appointive positions, but was ignored.
Visibly frustrated in his video released on social media, Gadon vented out against Sen. Imee. In the end, though, I think he would realize he had just done further damage to the very family he had committed to protect and serve.
The senator’s whipping up this storm came hours after Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin resigned from the Cabinet. Also relinquishing their Palace posts were Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and Bersamin’s grand-nephew, Adrian, from the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office.
These were the top-tier officials entangled in the P100-billion “ghost projects” scam, according to Congressman Zaldy Co.
It can be recalled that Co’s allegations over the weekend are explosive: he claims Marcos Jr. and House Speaker Martin Romualdez received up to P56 billion in kickbacks from illicit flood control projects. The allegations, dismissed as “lies” by Malacañang, are part of a mounting legal storm that threatens to engulf the entire family.
Co, once a trusted insider, has been on the run — sightings in Spain and the U.S., weight loss, and now facing graft and malversation charges filed by the Office of the Ombudsman. He’s accused of embezzling billions, falsifying documents, and receiving unwarranted benefits — serious charges that could land him in prison.
The timing couldn’t be worse for Marcos Jr. or his family. Co’s allegations come amid a backdrop of political upheaval — the resignation of key officials, mounting accusations, and a public increasingly disillusioned with a government embroiled in corruption. The question now is: where’s Martin Romualdez? Will he face the fallout, or continue to hide behind political shields?
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