Philippines Vice President threatens to assassinate President Marcos, his wife if she is killed

Amid escalating political turmoil in the Philippines, Vice President Sara Duterte has threatened to get President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his wife assassinated if she was killed.

Duterte, who ran as Marcos' vice-presidential running mate in the May 2022 presidential elections, made the threat on Nov 23 as the country's two most powerful political families drifted apart.

She also said that she had contracted an assassin to kill the country’s President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, his wife, and the House of Representatives speaker.

“This country is going to hell because we are led by a person who doesn’t know how to be a president and who is a liar,” she was heard saying in a briefing broadcast on her Facebook page.

She made threats in response to concerns about her safety in the House of Representatives.

Meanwhile, the presidential communications office said the vice president's threats were being taken seriously and were being considered a serious threat against Marcos.

“Acting on the vice president’s clear and unequivocal statement that she had contracted an assassin to kill the president if an alleged plot against her succeeds, the executive secretary has referred this active threat to the Presidential Security Command for immediate proper action,” it said in a statement.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin has referred to Duterte's comments as an “active threat” against the country’s president. He also asked the elite presidential guard force “for immediate proper action."

However, it is not revealed what actions will be taken against the Vice President.

Over the past few years, the two leaders have had a bitter fallout over significant disagreements, especially in their stances on China’s assertive actions in the contested South China Sea.

Duterte, who resigned from her position as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body in Marcos's cabinet, became a staunch critic of Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s ally and cousin.

She alleged the trio of corruption, incompetent governance, and targeting the Duterte family and its close supporters.

Duterte is the daughter of Marcos’s predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, who is infamous for his coarse language and a controversial war on drugs that is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court.