Poe should accept Bongbong’s offer re DNA test

ONE HOPES in earnest that Sen. Grace Poe was truly sincere and honest in saying she welcomed the offer of Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to take a DNA test with her to help her find her biological parents (“Is Grace Poe a Marcos? DNA test up,” Inquirer.net, 11/6/15).

With that, the politically troubled senator will have nothing to lose and everything to gain. If the test turns out positive—meaning Bongbong is her biological brother—then no one may thenceforth question her as a natural-born citizen. If it turns out negative, then the nearly half-a-century-old urban legend that she is an illegitimate child of former president Ferdinand Marcos with former movie actress Rosemarie Sonora, younger sister of Poe’s adoptive mother, Susan Roces, could be finally put to rest. As a matter of fact, this newly evolving alternative should have been that which Poe had pursued from the very outset, or at least alongside the other DNA tests (which all ended up in vain) she took with the “relatives” of her “supposed” real parents.

Methinks Poe and/or her lawyers should admit it—at least to themselves if not really to others—that more than Poe’s primary and consuming obsession for many years to find her true beginnings, it is her natural-born citizenship status that is most crucial to her at the moment. And time is not running in her favor in this regard. I am saying all this with all honesty and candor, neither as the embattled senator’s supporter nor critic.

—RUDY L. CORONEL, rudycoronel [email protected]