Sukarno rival in fits over nude photos

LUNCH a deux at the Mandarin Grill, where the derisory laughter of my companion when I mentioned that Dewi Sukarno, wife of former Indonesian president Sukarno, had published a book of nude photographs of herself got quite a few heads from nearby tables swivelling in our direction.

But the irony of the situation escaped our munching neighbours. For my lunch date was jet-setting (New York, Monaco, Aspen, London, depending on the season) socialite Minnie Osmena, whose celebrated spat in Colorado when Japanese-born Sukarno attacked her with a champagne glass collared headlines all over the world.

''That book doesn't surprise me at all because she's living up to her reputation,'' hissed Osmena. ''Her behaviour has always been consistent with her reputation.'' Stabbing her roast beef as she collected her thoughts, Osmena warmed to her theme: ''We were never friends. On occasions we would be invited to the same parties in the United States and Europe, but I always avoided having anything to do with her.

''But about five months before the Aspen incident we were both guests on a yacht in Ibiza when she started making rude remarks about my family.

''At this point I told her 'How would you know? You've only worked in a bar in Tokyo'.'' Osmena, a Filipina whose family has a distinguished record of public service in the Philippines, now spends more time in Asia, dividing her time between homes in Manila and her native province, Cebu, the family balliwick.

In Cebu, where the Osmena name is revered, she has set up the Minnie Osmena Foundation, which offers much-needed assistance to the poor.