Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte said on Saturday that she had made a deal with an assassin to kill the president, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives if she was killed, making a brazen public threat that she said was no joke. I warned you.
Secretary-General Lucas Bersamin called on the elite presidential guard to “take immediate and appropriate action” regarding “active threats” against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It is not immediately clear what action will be taken against the vice president.
Presidential Security Forces said they immediately increased security for Mr. Marcos and considered the vice president's threat, which was “made very brazenly in public,” to be a matter of national security.
Security forces “work with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and defend against all threats to the President and his family,” he said.
Mr. Marcos ran alongside Mr. Duterte as his vice presidential candidate in the May 2022 election, and both won in a landslide on campaigns that called for national unity.
But the two leaders and their camps quickly came to blows over key differences, including their approach to China's aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Mr. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June and served as education secretary and head of an opposition group.
Like his equally outspoken father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, the vice president has been vocal in his criticism of Mr. Marcos and his wife, Liza Araneta Marcos, as well as House Speaker Martín Romualdez, an ally and cousin of the president. , accused corruption, incompetence and political persecution of Mr. Duterte. Supporters of the family and their inner circle.
Her latest outburst comes after Romualdez and Marcos-aligned House members decided to detain Chief of Staff Zuleika López for obstructing a congressional investigation into possible budget abuses during her time as vice president and secretary of education. It started with the defeat of
Lopez later fell ill and was taken to the hospital, but she wept when she heard about plans to temporarily lock her up in a women's prison.
In a pre-dawn online press conference, an angry Sara Duterte accused Marcos of being incompetent as president and a liar, while also slamming his wife and the Speaker of the House of Representatives in expletive-laden remarks.
When asked about concerns for her safety, the 46-year-old's lawyer suggested there was an unspecified plot to kill her. “Don't worry about my safety because I'm talking to someone. I said, 'If I get killed, you're going to kill BBM, Liza Araneta, Martin Romualdez.' It's not a joke, it's not a joke,''' the vice president said without elaborating or using the initials that many people use to address the president.
“I gave the order: 'If I die, don't stop until you kill them.' And he said, 'Yes,'” the vice president said.
Under the Philippine Penal Code, such public statements can constitute a crime of threatening an individual or his or her family with wrongdoing, punishable by imprisonment and fines.
Amid political divisions, military commander Gen. Romeo Browner issued a statement assuring that the 160,000-member Philippine Armed Forces would remain nonpartisan “with the utmost respect for our democratic institutions and civilian authority.” did.
“We ask for calm and determination,” Browner said. “We reiterate the need to stand united against those who seek to tear apart our bonds as Filipinos.”
The vice president is the daughter of Marcos' predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. During his time as mayor and then as president, Mr. Duterte ramped up police crackdowns on drugs, killing thousands of mostly petty drug suspects and is being investigated by the International Criminal Court. as a possible crime against humanity.
The former president denied authorizing extrajudicial killings during his crackdown, but issued contradictory statements. Last month, he told a public inquiry by the Philippine Senate that he maintained a gang “death squad” to kill other criminals while he was mayor of the southern city of Davao City.
