Philippines steps up security after VP’s assassination threat against president

By Neil Jerome Morales

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine security agencies tightened security protocols on Saturday after Vice President Sara Duterte said she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assassinated if she herself was killed.

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 a hitman and instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife and the speaker of the Philippine House. if she were to be killed.

“I have spoken to one 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-laden 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 Presidential Security Command said it had increased and strengthened security protocols. “We are also coordinating closely with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter and defend against any and all threats against the President and the First Family,” it said in a statement.

Police chief Rommel Francisco Marbil said he had ordered an immediate investigation, adding that “any direct or indirect threat to his life must be treated with the highest level of urgency”.

The Office of Presidential Communications said any threat to the president’s life must always be taken seriously.

However, Duterte told reporters on Saturday afternoon, “Thinking and talking about it is different than doing it,” adding that there was already a threat to her life. “When that happens, there will be an inquest into my death. The inquest into their deaths will be next.”

POLITICAL SUPPORT

Her strong comments are unlikely to sway her political support, said Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines. “If anything, this type of rhetoric brings her even closer to what her father’s supporters liked about him.”

The daughter of Marcos’ predecessor as president, Duterte resigned from the Marcos cabinet in June while remaining vice president, signaling the collapse of a formidable political alliance that helped her and Marcos, son and namesake of the late authoritarian leader, to ensure their election in 2022 wins by a wide margin.

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 are at odds over issues including 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 country 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.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by William Mallard and David Holmes)