SEN. Imee Marcos said she will not attend the fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) of her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., set for this afternoon at 4 pm.
Marcos said other members of the so-called Duterte bloc in the Senate will not attend the SONA, among them Senators Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Christopher “Bong” Go, and Robin Padilla.
It is not immediately clear if Sen. Rodante Marcoleta will appear at the Batasang Pambansa, where Marcos is set to deliver his address.
Dela Rosa and Go were also no-shows in last year’s SONA.
“That was the decision we agreed upon. Personally, I don’t want to attend because I have so many things to do that are urgent and important,” Senator Marcos told reporters in Filipino.
“We will just listen to the SONA and we all know that whatever the president will say will be published in the newspapers, radio and television,” she added.
Instead, the senator said she will visit families who were affected by last week’s floods caused by tropical cyclones Crising, Dante and Emong, and the southwest monsoon.
“I will visit several school buildings where kids are waiting for food and for school supplies. I will, instead, go there,” she said.
The senator had admitted a rift with her brother following her probe into the March 11 arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte and the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into the extrajudicial killings linked to the Duterte administration’s drug war.Imee is the chairperson of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, which looked into the arrest.
She later asked the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate several Cabinet officials, led by Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla, for allegedly conspiring to illegally arrest and turnover Duterte to the international tribunal.
