Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte shockingly declared Saturday that she had contracted an assassin to kill the president, his wife and other top officials should she meet an untimely demise.
Duterte warned in an online press conference that she is deadly serious and not joking about her threat to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. killed if something happens to her first. Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred the "active threat" against the president to an elite presidential guard force "for immediate proper action."
The Presidential Security Command said it has "heightened and strengthened" Marcos' security protocols. "We are also closely coordinating with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter, and defend against any and all threats to the President and the First Family."
Security officials are treating the threat – "made so brazenly in public" – with the "upmost seriousness."
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"We consider this a matter of national security and shall take all necessary measures to ensure the President’s safety," the command said.
It is unclear what action, if any, will be taken against the vice president.
Marcos and Duterte ran on the same ticket in the May 2022 elections and both were elected with landslide majorities after campaigning on national unity.
But divisions over policy towards Chinese aggression in the disputed South China Sea and other key issues interrupted the honeymoon and led to a falling out between Marcos and Duterte.
Duterte, a populist, is the daughter of the equally controversial former President Rodrigo Duterte, a well-known critic of Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president's ally and cousin. Duterte has accused them of corruption, incompetence and political persecution of her family and supporters.
Her threat to have Marcos killed came after House members allied with Romualdez and Marcos detained her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, who was accused of hampering a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of her budget as vice president and education secretary. Lopez was later transferred to a hospital after falling ill, and wept when she heard of a plan to temporarily lock her up in a women’s prison, the Associated Press reported.
Furious, Duterte held an online press conference Saturday and accused Marcos of incompetence as president and of being a liar, along with his wife and the House speaker, throwing several expletives at them in her remarks.
When asked about concerns over her security, the 46-year-old lawyer suggested there was an unspecified plot to kill her. "Don’t worry about my security because I’ve talked with somebody. I said 'if I’m killed, you’ll kill BBM, Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke,’" the vice president said without elaborating and using the initials that many use to call the president.
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"I’ve given my order, ‘If I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them.’ And he said, ’yes,’" the vice president said, per the AP.
Philippine law criminalizes public remarks that may constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or his family, which is punishable by jail time and a fine.
In light of the chaotic political divisions, military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner put out a statement that pledged the 160,000-member Armed Forces of the Philippines would remain nonpartisan "with utmost respect for our democratic institutions and civilian authority."
"We call for calm and resolve," Brawner said. "We reiterate our need to stand together against those who will try to break our bonds as Filipinos."
Duterte's father Rodrigo Duterte presided over polcie-enforced anti-drugs crackdowns when he was a city mayor and later president tthatleft thousands of drug suspects dead in killings the International Criminal Court has been investigating as a possible crime against humanity.
The former president has denied authorizing extrajudicial killings under his anti-drug crusade, but some of his public statements have contradicted his denials. He told a public Philippine Senate inquiry last month that he had maintained a "death squad" of gangsters to kill other criminals when he was mayor of southern Davao city.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
