An early preview of 2028

IT was former president Rodrigo Duterte who first began the rumor that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has been a regular illegal user of cocaine, otherwise known among its fashionable crowd as "coke." Malacañang has ignored the rumor, but because of an aggressive social media offensive, it spread, particularly among Filipinos in the United States.

Now, a witness at a hearing by four House committees in Bacolor, Pampanga, has fired back, accusing the former president's congressman-son Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte, his son-in-law Manases Carpio, who is also Vice President Sara Duterte's husband, and a Chinese business associate named Michael Yang, of having been involved in the smuggling of P11 billion worth of "shabu" (methamphetamine) into the country in 2018.