Philippines’ Marcos Jnr faces drug use claims again by Duterte camp – is there ‘a plot’ to oust him?

Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, a close Duterte ally, has initiated a hearing in which a former anti-narcotics agent claimed Marcos Jnr was a drug abuser

Congressman Faustino Dy, a supporter of Marcos Jnr, says the hearing is part of a ‘wider effort to destabilise’ the Marcos Jnr government

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Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Junior at a forum of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines in Manila. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 5:16pm, 6 May 2024Updated: 7:41pm, 6 May 2024

As Philippine lawmakers prepare to investigate former president Rodrigo Duterte’s so-called secret deal with Beijing over the South China Sea dispute, his camp has struck back by initiating a Senate probe into his successor Ferdinand Marcos Jnr’s alleged illegal drug use.

The latest in the political battle between the country’s most powerful families involved a former agent of the country’s anti-narcotics agency going on record to say that there was evidence the current president was a drug abuser, although the case was never pursued.

Last week, Senator Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa, a close Duterte ally, conducted a hearing in which former anti-narcotics agent Jonathan Morales said in a sworn testimony he was prevented by a top government official from investigating a male political personality named “Bongbong Marcos”, “alias Bonget”, for “illegal drugs” despite photos of the suspect’s activities having been presented by an informant.

Dela Rosa said a well-known actress would appear in the next hearing of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs headed by him to explain why she was once linked to “nefarious activities” involving illegal drugs with Bongbong Marcos, as alleged by Morales’ informant.

Bongbong is the president’s nickname, while his close friends call him “Bonget”.

During an interview with reporters on Monday, Marcos Jnr was asked about the allegation claiming that he and the actress Maricel Soriano were named in a drug agency report, which purportedly recommended that they should be investigated after they were “allegedly frequently seen inhaling a white powdery substance suspected to be illegal drugs”.

Marcos Jnr merely laughed when asked, while his executive secretary Lucas Bersamin described the allegation as “contrived”, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper.