The vice president of the Philippines, Sara Duterte, claimed on Sunday that remarks this weekend in which she suggested she had hired a hitman to kill President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., his wife, and the speaker of the House were “maliciously taken out of context.”
Duterte and Marcos are locked in a fierce public feud exacerbated by an ongoing Congressional investigation into Duterte for allegedly misappropriating public funding, featuring claims of mysterious withdrawals of funds out of government coffers into duffel bags. Duterte denies all wrongdoing and, in a late-night video rant on Saturday, suggested Marcos was trying to kill her. Duterte was reportedly responding to a question asking if she feared for her safety.
Both Duterte and Marcos are the products of Philippine political dynasties. Marcos’s father, Ferdinand Marcos, Sr., famously ruled the country as a dictator for 20 years and, while seen internationally as a corrupt ruler, left a flourishing political dynasty still active in politics in the country. Duterte is the daughter of a nascent political dynasty essentially established by her father, Rodrigo Duterte, who served as president immediately before Marcos, Jr. In addition to Sara, Rodrigo’s son Sebastian Duterte is currently serving as the mayor of Davao City, where Rodrigo served for decades before running for president. Rodrigo Duterte was notorious for launching killing sprees against suspected drug traffickers and routinely threatening to kill people, most prominently bishops and priests.
“I have talked to someone. I told him that if I am killed, he should kill [Marcos Jr.], [First Lady] Liza Araneta and [House Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke,” Duterte declared. “If I am killed, I said, don’t stop until you have killed them, and then he said ‘yes.'”
Elsewhere in the remarks, Duterte hurled profanities at the president and his administration, accusing Marcos of “lying through his teeth to get the votes of people” and shouting putang ina, a Filipino profanity that roughly translates to “son of a whore.”
President Marcos published a response to Duterte’s remarks on Monday in which he called them “disturbing” and promised to “fight” her to the full extent of the law.
“The statements we have heard in recent days are disturbing. There is the insolent cursing and the threat of a plan to kill some of us,” Marcos narrated in his speech. “Such a criminal attempt should not be ignored. If it is so easy to plan the assassination of a president, how much more so for ordinary citizens?”
“The truth should not be distorted,” he continued, vowing that he would support the ongoing corruption probe against his vice president. Marcos also criticized Duterte for not cooperating sufficiently with House investigations.
“Things would not come to such a drama if she answered legitimate questions from the Senate and the House of Representatives,” he said.
“We will not compromise the Rule of Law. The law must prevail in any situation, whoever is affected. That is why I will not let the desire of others to drag the entire country into the mire of politics succeed,” he asserted. “Let us respect the process. Let us uphold the law. Let us remember the mandate entrusted to us by millions of Filipinos.”
The speaker of the House of Representatives, Romualdez, independently responded to the threats, calling Duterte’s tirade “alarming and unprecedented.”
“Let me be clear — this is no longer a joke. This is no longer a normal conversation. This is a direct threat to our democracy, our government, and the security of the nation,” he asserted, vowing to continue the investigation against her.
The Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) announced on Monday that it would summon Duterte to formally investigate her comments. NBI Chief Jaime Santiago said that Duterte was likely to receive a subpoena on Tuesday, according to the Philippine Star. The Department of Justice separately announced that it was discussing the potential of prosecuting Duterte on charges of sedition, while the Presidential Security Command announced that it had heightened security around Marcos and his family.
“Any threat to the life of the President and the First Family, regardless of its origin—and especially one made so brazenly in public—is treated with the utmost seriousness. We consider this a matter of national security and shall take all necessary measures to ensure the President’s safety,” the Security Command announced.
Duterte appeared to backtrack on her statements on Sunday, publishing a letter addressed to the Philippine National Security Council condemning the government treating her comments as a national security emergency.
“I would like to see a copy of the notice of meeting with proof of service, the list of attendees, photos of the meeting, and the notarized minutes of the meeting where the Council … resolved to consider the remarks by a Vice President against a President—maliciously taken out of logical context—as a national security concern,” Duterte asserted.
“In addition, please include in the agenda for the next meeting my request to present to the Council the threats to the Vice President, the Office of the Vice President (OVP), and its personnel,” she added.
STATEMENT AND OPEN LETTER OF VICE PRESIDENT SARA DUTERTE This is in response to the statement made by the National…
Posted by Inday Sara Duterte on Sunday, November 24, 2024
Duterte’s relationship with Marcos has been publicly acrimonious for months. In October, Duterte described fantasizing about beheading Marcos for allegedly being rude to young graduates. She described a graduate jokingly asking Marcos for his expensive watch, which Marcos denied to him.
“At that point, I was already ill, I wasn’t feeling well. I wanted to remove his head. I realized the relationship was already toxic,” Duterte said at the time. “It did not help that those beside me laughed. They were laughing at the kid. And I saw the humiliation on the face of the kid.”
Duterte’s legal woes appear to be independent from any actions she has taken in relation to Marcos. The House of Representatives is reportedly investigating her office for withdrawing government funds, apparently inappropriately. Several members of her office stand accused of allegedly withdrawing tens of millions of Philippine pesos (over $400,000) and stuffing it in duffel bags. Duterte has aggressively denied all wrongdoing.
Prior to Sara’s relationship souring with the president, her father Rodrigo had threatened to organize a coup against Marcos in January and accused him, without evidence, of being a “drug addict.” Davao Mayor Sebastian Duterte also attacked Marcos that month, calling him “lazy” and demanding he resign.
Rodrigo Duterte’s tenure was defined by a violent, pervasive campaign against drug trafficking, in which the then-president regularly called for the mass killing of bishops and priests, claiming himself to be the victim of sexual assault as a child by a priest. Duterte also supported the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug criminals and communists.
“If there’s an encounter and you see them armed, kill, kill them. Don’t mind human rights. I will be the one to go to prison; I don’t have qualms,” Rodrigo Duterte said once, discussing communist terrorism, in 2021.
Duterte was nonetheless extremely popular, catapulting the careers of his son and daughter. The Marcos-Duterte ticket emerged victorious in the 2022 Philippine presidential election, a highly contested race in which, for a time, the frontrunner appeared to be legendary boxing champion Manny Pacquiao.
At his peak in 2020, Duterte boasted an unprecedented 91-percent approval rating.
