Philippines’ Marcos vows to fight ‘disturbing’ threat from VP Sara Duterte | Politics news

The president says in a taped national address that ‘criminal plans’ against him and the first lady should not be overlooked.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has said he would fight back against what he described as a “disturbing” threat against him, days after his estranged ally Sara Duterte said she had asked someone to assassinate the president if she was killed.

In a strongly worded video message addressed to the nation on Monday, Marcos said: “Such criminal plans should not be overlooked.” However, he did not name Vice President Duterte, his 2022 presidential candidate.

In a dramatic twist in the bitter feud between Marcos and the powerful Duterte family, the daughter of fiery former President Rodrigo Duterte said on Saturday that she had instructed a hitman to kill Marcos, his wife and the Speaker of Parliament if she was killed .

She responded to a question during an online news conference about whether she feared for her safety. She did not mention any specific threat against her.

“The statements we heard in the previous days were troubling,” Marcos said. “There is the reckless use of profanity and threats to kill some of us.”

“I will fight them,” he said, adding that he would not allow such criminal attempts to pass.

“If it is so easy to plan the assassination of the president, how much more so for ordinary citizens?”

Duterte told reporters that she had not yet heard the president’s statement but would respond later.

Earlier Monday, Duterte said her statement against Marcos was “maliciously taken out of logical context”.

Collapse of alliance between two powerful families

In an open letter, she also questioned the statement by the National Security Council (NSC) that it considers all threats made against Marcos “serious and a matter of national security”.

The vice president’s stunning remarks were the latest salvo in a bitter row that has intensified since the collapse of a formidable alliance between their two powerful families that saw Marcos, son and namesake of the late leader, win the 2022 election by a wide margin.

She left her cabinet post in June and has fought congressional scrutiny of her spending while in office, at times reacting with open hostility to lawmakers and failing to appear for some cases.

In October, Duterte had told reporters that her relationship with Marcos had become so “toxic” that she sometimes fantasizes about beheading him.

The threat to have Marcos killed stemmed from an order by lawmakers to transfer her top aide to prison for allegedly obstructing its investigation into alleged misuse of funds from the vice president’s office.

According to a senior official in the Ministry of Justice, the vice president does not have immunity from prosecution.

Sara Duterte’s attack on Marcos also comes weeks after the mercurial Rodrigo Duterte was the subject of a marathon congressional investigation into thousands of killings during the so-called “war on drugs” that defined his 2016 to 2022 presidency.

During these hearings, the Marcos administration signaled for the first time that it would cooperate with any international effort to arrest the former president, who is being investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for possible crimes against humanity.