Sara Duterte: Philippines vice president says she would have Marcos assassinated if killed

Manila, Philippines
Reuters
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Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday that she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. assassinated if she herself was killed, prompting Marcos’ office to promise “immediate proper action”.

In a dramatic sign of a growing rift between the two most powerful political families in the Southeast Asian nation, Duterte told an early morning news conference that she had spoken to an assassin and instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife and the speaker of the Philippines. House if she were to be killed.

“I have spoken to a person. I said if I am killed, kill BBM (Marcos), (First Lady) Liza Araneta and (Speaker) Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke,” Duterte said in the profanity-laced briefing. “I said don’t stop until you kill them and then he said yes.”

Responding to an online commenter urging her to stay safe, she said she was in enemy territory when she was in the lower chamber of Congress overnight with her chief of staff. Duterte did not mention any alleged threat to himself.

The Office of the President’s Communications responded with a statement saying, “Based on the Vice President’s clear and unequivocal statement that she had contracted with an assassin to kill the President if an alleged plot against her succeeds, the Executive Secretary has referred this active threat to the President’s security Command for immediate correct action.

“Any threat to the President’s life must always be taken seriously, more so because this threat has been publicly disclosed in clear and definite terms,” ​​it said.

Duterte’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Office of the President’s statement.

“This country is going to hell because we are led by someone who doesn’t know how to be president and who is a liar,” she said at the briefing.

Duterte, the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, resigned from the government in June while remaining vice president, signaling the collapse of a formidable political alliance that helped her and Marcos, the son and namesake of the late authoritarian leader, secure their electoral victories in 2022 widely. margins.

Speaker Romualdez, a cousin of Marcos, has cut the vice president’s office budget by nearly two-thirds.

Duterte’s outburst is the latest in a series of startling signs of the feud at the top of Philippine politics. In October, she accused Marcos of incompetence and said she imagined cutting off the president’s head.

The two families disagree on, among other things, foreign policy and former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

In the Philippines, the vice president is elected separately from the president and has no official duties. Many vice presidents have pursued social development activities, while some have been appointed to cabinet posts.

The nation is gearing up for midterm elections in May, seen as a litmus test of Marcos’ popularity and a chance for him to consolidate power and groom a successor before his lone six-year term ends in 2028.

Past political violence in the Philippines has included the assassination of Benigno Aquino, a senator who strongly opposed the rule of the elder Marcos, as he exited his plane upon arrival home from political exile in 1983.