SEN. Imee Marcos yesterday said Davao City Mayor Sebastian “Baste” Duterte has already made an apology after he uttered harsh words against her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, during the rally in Davao City last Sunday.
The mayor asked President Marcos Jr., the senator’s brother, to resign due to his dissatisfaction with the Marcos administration. He also criticized the Marcos administration for prioritizing politics over the welfare of the people.
Sen. Marcos said Duterte approached her after delivering a speech against the President during the “Hakbang ng Maisug” prayer rally last Sunday night in Davao City and said sorry for what he said.
Marcos was in Davao City on Sunday to show support to the Duterte-family initiated rally against Charter change and other issues hounding their family.
“Mayor Baste approached me and repeatedly said sorry. I understand him because, imagine his father [former president Rodrigo Duterte] and elder sister [Vice President Sara Duterte] will be jailed. That will really be a trigger for someone to be emotional,” she said in Filipino in a chance interview.
Marcos was apparently referring to reports that investigators of the International Criminal Court have entered the country and gathered enough evidence against the former president on the crime against humanity filed against him for his bloody war against illegal drugs.
The Vice President was lately charged before the ICC for her alleged involvement in the activities of the so-called Davao Death Squad during her time as city vice mayor and city mayor.
Marcos said she asked the city mayor what he was talking about in his speech during the rally as it seemed to be too harsh. She said Baste said. “Sorry ha, sorry.”
The Armed Forces said it has no information about the alleged use of illegal drugs by its commander-in-chief, President Marcos Jr.
AFP Public Affairs Office chief Col. Xerxes Trinidad made the remarks after former President Duterte alleged that the Armed Forces is aware that “we have a President who is a drug addict.”
The elder Duterte made the remarks also in the Sunday rally. He said he was given “evidence” by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) when he was still a Davao City mayor and the name of Marcos was there. PDEA on Monday said Marcos “is not and was never in its watch list.”
Trinidad said, “As far as we know, we don’t have that kind of information.”
“As of now, what we have in the (Armed Forces) is we don’t have that kind of information,” Trinidad said.
Trinidad said the AFP should not be asked about the involvement of certain personalities in illegal drugs because the military has “no mandate on checking on other people” when it comes to illegal drugs.
The elder Duterte has said he wants the AFP and the PNP to arrest those who are wasting people’s money to buy the signatures of Filipinos for Charter change, and to
protect the Constitution. — With Victor Reyes
