First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos will just shrug off the accusations made by resigned Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co regarding her alleged agricultural smuggling interference as Congress was inquiring into rising food prices, Palace Press Officer Claire Castro said on Friday.
This was the answer given by Castro when she was asked about the first lady’s reaction to the allegations, which Co made through a ‘tell-all’ video statement released on Wednesday.
‘We know how the first lady reacts to negative news like these baseless stories. She will simply shrug it off because we know, and she knows what the truth is,’ Castro said during a Palace briefing.
She added that Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., one of the personalities mentioned by Co in the video, had already refuted the allegations, and that both President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Araneta-Marcos know what is correct and what is not.
‘The first lady and the president know the truth. And in the past few days, Secretary Kiko Laurel himself confirmed what the truth is, and what his experience was in speaking or dealing with Zaldy Co,’ Castro said.
In his video, Co accused Araneta-Marcos of trying to stop congressional inquiries into soaring food prices on behalf of her brother, Martin Araneta, who was implicated in the 2022 onion price crisis.
Tiu Laurel, for his part, said the former legislator’s corruption allegations were a ‘fabricated lie.’
‘It’s total baloney. I even said it’s like a script from a Netflix series. He’s really good. You can call him a tailor. He’s excellent at stitching stories together,’ the DA chief said in a message to reporters, hours after Co released his video.