When politics betrays blood

There is a quiet kind of sadness that settles in when you witness a family’s private wounds being paraded in public, especially in a country like ours, where the strength of a family is often the last refuge in turbulent times. 

The recent statements of Senator Imee Marcos alleging drug abuse within her brother’s household have left many Filipinos not enraged, but heartbroken. Not because the accusations are believed, but because of what they reveal: a political agenda overshadowing what should have been an act of care, concern, or even sisterly love.

In the Filipino imagination, siblings may quarrel, disagree, or drift apart, but they do not drag each other to the town plaza to be stoned by public opinion. Our culture has always held family as sacred, a sanctuary protected not by wealth or power, but by shared memory, loyalty and honor. 

No Filipino daughter would think of exposing a sibling’s alleged personal struggles to the entire nation, much less when that sibling happens to be the President himself. The instinct of every Filipino family, whether they live in a mansion or a modest bahay kubo, is simple: “pag may problema sa pamilya, inuupo sa hapag-kainan, hindi sa harap ng kamera” (when there is a problem in the family, we discuss at the dinner table, not in front of the cameras).

And that is why the senator’s remarks stung deeper than ordinary political mudslinging. They broke the unspoken rule that family is not a weapon to be used for political leverage. There was a time when Filipinos looked at their leaders and asked, not for perfection, but for unity. Not for drama, but for dignity. Instead, what we are seeing today is a deliberate attempt to create spectacle, to seed suspicion, to cast shadows where there should have been support.

If Senator Imee truly believed her brother’s family was in danger, the loving path was obvious and deeply Filipino: close the doors, gather the siblings, call in trusted friends and address the matter privately, compassionately, and constructively. That is what a sister does. That is what any Filipino with a conscience would do. You protect, you guide, you intervene quietly — never for applause, never for advantage.

But what we saw was different. What we saw was a sister choosing the microphone over the moment, the camera over concern and the political arena over the living room. And in doing so, she may have damaged not her brother’s reputation, but something far more fragile: the hope that even in politics, some lines of decency still remain.

Filipinos know better. We know that no political goal — no ambition, no strategy, no rivalry — should ever justify turning family into collateral damage. Our nation has enough wounds. We don’t need leaders who create new ones at the expense of their own blood.

In the end, the tragedy is not the allegation, it is the betrayal.