The Philippines’ vice president said she ordered an assassin to kill the president if she was killed.
In a dramatic sign of the widening rift between the Southeast Asian country’s two most powerful political families, Vice President Sara Duterte said at a news conference that she had spoken to an assassin and ordered him to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife and the president. Speaker of the Philippine House of Representatives if she is killed.
“I talked to someone. I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM (Marcos), (First Lady) Liza Araneta, and (Speaker of Parliament) Martin Romualdez. No joke,” Duterte said in the profanity-laced news conference. “It’s not a joke.” “I said, ‘Don’t stop until you kill them.’ He said, ‘Yes.’”
Security agencies intensified safety protocols in response.
She was responding to an online commentator who urged her to stay safe, saying she was in enemy territory as she was in the lower house of Congress all night with her chief of staff. Duterte did not mention any alleged threat against her.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. listens during the 19th East Asia Summit in Vientiane, Laos, Friday, October 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit).
The Presidential Security Command said it had tightened and enhanced security protocols. “We are also coordinating closely with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and defend against any and all threats to the President and First Family,” she said in a statement.
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Police Chief Rommel Francisco Marbella said he had ordered an immediate investigation, adding that “any direct or indirect threat to his life must be dealt with with the highest level of urgency.”
The Presidential Communications Office said any threat to the president’s life should always be taken seriously.
Duterte’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the remarks.
University of the Philippines political scientist Jean Encinas Franco said the vice president’s strong comments probably would not affect her political support. “This kind of rhetoric brings her closer to what her father’s supporters like about him.”
Duterte, the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor as president, resigned from Marcos’s government in June while remaining vice president, signaling the collapse of a formidable political alliance that helped her and Marcos, the son of the late authoritarian leader of the same name, secure their electoral victories in 2022 by wide margins.
Parliament Speaker Romualdez, a cousin of Marcos, cut the budget of the Vice President’s Office by about two-thirds.
Duterte’s outburst is the latest in a series of startling signs of discord at the top of Philippine politics. In October, she accused Marcos of incompetence and said she fantasized about beheading the president.
The two families are at loggerheads over foreign policy and former President Rodrigo Duterte’s deadly war on drugs, among other issues.
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 ministerial positions.
The country is preparing for midterm elections in May, which are seen as a real test of Marcos’ popularity and an opportunity for him to consolidate his power and groom his successor before his single six-year term ends in 2028.
Previous political violence in the Philippines included the assassination of Benigno Aquino, a senator who strongly opposed the rule of Marcos Sr., as he exited his plane upon arriving home from political exile in 1983.
