MANILA — On Saturday, Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte publicly declared that she had hired someone to assassinate President Marcos, his wife, and the House Speaker if she herself were killed, emphasizing that this was not a joke.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin forwarded the “active threat” against President Marcos to an elite presidential guard unit for immediate action. The response to the Vice President’s threat remained unclear.
The Presidential Security Command immediately increased Marcos’ security detail, classifying the Vice President’s openly stated threat as a national security concern.
The security force reported coordinating with law enforcement agencies to prevent and counteract any threats to the President and his family.
Marcos and Duterte ran together in the May 2022 elections, winning by a landslide on a platform of national unity.
However, the two leaders and their respective groups quickly developed a bitter rivalry due to significant disagreements, including their approaches to China’s assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June, leaving her positions as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency agency.
Like her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, the Vice President became a vocal critic of President Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez (the President’s cousin and ally), accusing them of corruption, incompetence, and politically persecuting the Duterte family and their allies.
This latest outburst followed a decision by House members aligned with Romualdez and Marcos to detain her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, who was accused of obstructing a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of her budget as Vice President and education secretary. Lopez was later hospitalized after falling ill and wept upon learning of plans to temporarily incarcerate her in a women’s prison.
In a pre-dawn online press conference, an enraged Sara Duterte verbally attacked Marcos, his wife, and the House Speaker, using expletives to describe their alleged incompetence and dishonesty.
When questioned about her safety, the 46-year-old lawyer implied there was a plot to kill her. “Don’t worry about my security because I’ve talked with somebody. I said ‘if I’m killed, you’ll kill BBM, Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke,’” the Vice President stated, declining to provide further details and using the initials commonly used to refer to the President.
“I’ve given my order, ‘If I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them.’ And he said, ‘yes,’” the Vice President added.
Under Philippine law, such public statements may constitute the crime of threatening harm to a person or their family, punishable by imprisonment and a fine.
Amidst the political turmoil, military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner issued a statement assuring the public that the 160,000-member Armed Forces of the Philippines would remain impartial, respecting democratic institutions and civilian authority.
“We call for calm and resolve,” Brawner stated. “We reiterate our need to stand together against those who will try to break our bonds as Filipinos.”
The Vice President is the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, whose war on drugs, enforced by police during his time as mayor and later President, resulted in the deaths of thousands, mostly petty drug suspects, prompting investigations by the International Criminal Court as a potential crime against humanity.
The former President denied authorizing extrajudicial killings during his crackdown but has offered conflicting accounts. Last month, he admitted to maintaining a “death squad” of gangsters to eliminate other criminals while mayor of Davao City during a Philippine Senate inquiry.