Philippines VP Sparks Row After Publicly Threatening To 'Assassinate' President Marcos

Last Updated:November 24, 2024, 17:34 IST

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and VP Sara Duterte, once political partners in 2022, are now bitter rivals.

VP Sara Duterte escalated the bitter feud with President Marcos Jr by threatening to assassinate him and his wife. (Reuters)

In a dramatic escalation of a widening rift between the top two leaders, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte on Saturday said she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “assassinated" if she was killed herself, prompting Marcos’ office to vow “immediate proper action".

Duterte told an early morning press conference that she spoke to an assassin and instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife and the Speaker of the Philippine House if she were to be killed. “I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM (Marcos), (first lady) Liza Araneta, and (Speaker) Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke," CNN quoted the VP as saying.

“I said, do not stop until you kill them and then he said yes," Duterte continued, calling Marcos a “liar" who did not know how to be president. Her threat stemmed from an order by lawmakers to transfer her chief-of-staff to a jail for allegedly impeding its probe over the vice-president’s alleged misuse of public funds.

What Will Happen To Duterte Now?

Following the Vice President’s public remarks, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred the “active threat" against President Marcos to an an elite presidential guards force “for immediate proper action". The Presidential Security Command boosted Marcos’ security after the shocking statement.

The security council on Sunday said it considered the vice president’s threat, which was “made so brazenly in public," a national security issue. It said it was “coordinating with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and defend against any and all threats to the president and the first family".

Under the Philippine law, such public remarks can constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or his family and is punishable with a prison time and a fine. However, it is unclear how this would impact Vice President Duterte.

Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said the government considers all threats to the president as “serious" and that Duterte’s threats are now under investigation and may lead to charges. “If the evidence warrants, this could lead to eventual prosecution," Marcos’ office said in a statement.

Why Did Duterte Threaten Marcos?

Sara Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte and a lawyer, later tried to walk back her threats by saying they were only an expression of concern over an unspecified threat to her own life. “Why would I kill him if not for revenge from the grave? There is no reason for me to kill him. What’s the benefit for me?" she told journalists.

Duterte and Marcos were political partners who won the 2022 campaigns with landslide margins. However, they had a bitter falling-out over key differences, including in their approaches towards China’s aggression in the South China Sea and the elder Duterte’s war on drugs.

Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body and became a vocal critic of the President, accusing him of corruption, incompetence and persecution of the Duterte family.

The VP’s tirade came after the House decided to detain her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, for allegedly hampering a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of her budget as vice president and education secretary. Notably, Marcos’ congressional allies are also separately investigating her father’s war on drugs that left over 6,000 dead. Both have denied wrongdoing.

(with inputs from agencies)

Manila, Philippines

News world Philippines VP Sparks Row After Publicly Threatening To 'Assassinate' President Marcos