Senator Imee Marcos stepped onto the Iglesia ni Cristo stage on the second, and ultimately final, day of the rally at Rizal Park and dropped what she clearly thought was going to be the Big One: a 28-minute speech accusing her own brother, President Bongbong Marcos, of being a drug addict. 

It was meant to be the knockout punch, the grand reveal, the spark that would set off a firestorm of public fury and pave the way for a Sara Duterte takeover. Instead, the “bomb” blew up in her face.

Let’s be honest here. The timing and tone of that speech left no doubt about her intent. This was supposed to be the follow-up to the Zaldy Co “exposé,” which three days prior had largely proven to be a dud. 

Co accused the President of receiving massive kickbacks from flood control projects, but outside the echo chamber of Duterte diehards, nobody was particularly moved. Enter Manang Imee, determined to do what Co could not.

It didn’t work. In fact, it failed on almost every level.

First, there was Imee’s claim that her brother’s supposed drug habit went way back to their youth. If true, why bring it up only now? And the bigger question: if she truly believed he was unfit, why did she campaign for him so fiercely in 2022? 

Why push someone you supposedly know to be dangerously compromised into the highest office in the land? The accusation doesn’t just cast doubt on Marcos Jr., it calls her own integrity and motives into question.

Second, her story also splattered the Dutertes with no small amount of mud. According to Imee, Bongbong ended up on a drug list during the Duterte administration, and she had to plead with then-President Rodrigo Duterte to spare him. 

But if Duterte knew Marcos was allegedly a user and still protected him, then what did that say about the so-called “war on drugs?” What happened to his oft-repeated vow that he would show no mercy? And what does it say about Sara Duterte, who knowingly ran as the vice presidential partner of someone her own father supposedly flagged as compromised?

As it turns out, Imee’s bombshell wasn’t a missile aimed solely at her brother — it was a scatterbomb that blasted the entire Duterte-Marcos alliance.

Third, and perhaps the most fatal, she misread the cultural room. Filipinos can tolerate many things in politics, but public betrayal of family ranks high on the list of “Definitely Avoid.” Even those who dislike the Marcoses winced. 

Being “manang” may give her credibility, but it also makes her attack look like the ultimate act of disloyalty. Whether people believe her or not almost becomes secondary to the visceral reaction of “How could a sister do that to her own blood?”

In the end, the supposed bombshell didn’t bring Marcos Jr. down. Instead, it isolated Imee. Her brother is weakened but still standing. And now she finds herself in the purgatory of Philippine politics — distrusted by both her family’s loyalists and the public at large.

It’s true that Marcos Jr. still has a long, rough road ahead because of the flood control mess. But one thing is equally clear: whatever political dreams Imee Marcos may have just got a lot more distant, courtesy of a bomb she thought she was dropping on someone else.