Family feud

SKETCHES

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

The presidential veto of that seemingly innocuous bill on the declaration of Pampanga as the culinary capital of the Philippines, I just learned, might have been due to something less benign than preventing discrimination against other provinces and regions.

At least that's the suspicion of the bill's sponsor in the Senate: President Marcos' elder sister Imee.

Now Ate Imee wonders if the bill was vetoed because she was the co-sponsor: "Kasalanan ko kaya? Si GMA?" The bill's sponsor in the House of Representatives is another former ally who is now in the administration doghouse, Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

"That was such a kamote bill," Senator Imee told a small gathering of journalists last Wednesday, describing her brother's veto as a show of "kababawan" or shallowness.

The gathering was held just hours before she released a statement announcing that she would no longer be part of her brother's Senate slate, due to differences in principles.

This came after BBM omitted mentioning her in his recent campaign pitches for the bets of the Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas, instead endorsing just "10 or 11" candidates. The senator is now positioning herself as an independent bet.

What sealed the siblings' estrangement must have been Senator Imee's inquiry into the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte and turnover to the International Criminal Court through the Interpol. Her preliminary report, released yesterday, concluded that there were "glaring violations" of Duterte's rights when he was arrested and packed off to the ICC in The Hague.