Despite being his successor to the presidency, Vice President Sara Duterte on Saturday, Nov. 23, said there would be no benefit for her if President Marcos dies.
(From left) President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte during the Brigada Eskwela in Manila last Aug. 14, 2023. (Ali Vicoy/MANILA BULLETIN)
This after she publicly threatened to have the President assassinated if she herself is killed.
“Bakit ko daw sya papatayin (They say why will I get him killed) if not for revenge from the grave? There is no reason na papatayin ko siya. Anong benefit noon sa akin? Papatayin ko si (First Lady) Liza? Anong benefit noon sa akin? Wala (to get him killed. What benefit is that to me? I’ll have [First Lady] Liza killed? How will that benefit me? Nothing),” she said in an interview on Saturday, Nov. 23, at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC).
Duterte was there to accompany her chief-of-staff, Office of the Vice President (OVP) Undersecretary Zuleika Lopez, who had a panic attack after the House good government committee ordered her transfer to the Women’s Correctional Facility in Mandaluyong City from the House custodial facility where she was detained.
“Buti sana kung tagapagmana ako ng nakaw na yaman, di naman. So, anong benefit nun pag nawala sila sa mundong ito for them to say there is a threat? Sa threat ko nga wala silang pakialam (I’m not going to inherit their stolen riches anyway. So, how will their deaths benefit me for them to say there is a threat? They don’t even care about the threats to my life),” Duterte argued.
In a Zoom press conference over the weekend, Duterte said she hired an assassin to have Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez killed if ever something happened to her.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred the "active threat" against the President, with the Presidential Security Command tightening Marcos’ security and is said to be treating the Vice President’s pronouncements as a national security issue.
Duterte, who was also seen on Saturday night addressing the supporters who camped outside the Veterans hospital, defended her statement after Bersamin’s order.
“Sinabi ko, 'Kung mamatay ako.' Ibig sabihin in the first place, meron nang threat sa akin (What I said was, ‘If I die.’ What that means in the first place us there is a threat to my life). But they simply do not care that I am also concerned about my security because I hear things,” she explained.
The Vice President furthered that her statements were more of “a concern about my death . . . about my murder.”
“(It) is a legitimate concern but sabi ko nga (as I said) they don’t care. Maybe because siguro nga sa kanila galing (it came from them), so they don’t care,” she claimed.
Duterte and Marcos won under the message of unity in the 2022 polls, but have since had a falling out due to their differences in a number of issues, including the West Philippine Sea dispute and the International Criminal Court (ICC) case against former president Rodrigo Duterte.
The Vice President held an expletive-laden Zoom press conference until the wee hours of Saturday, Nov. 23, where she did not only publicly threaten the First Couple and Romualdez, her former campaign manager, but also accused the President of incompetence and his wife of corruption.
The official was staying at the VMMC, wherein she was visited by allies Senators Bato Dela Rosa, Bong Go, and former presidential legal adviser Salvador Panelo.
Lopez, her chief-of-staff, faced the House good government committee last Nov. 21 when she was cited in contempt and ordered detained at the House premises for asking the Commission on Audit (COA) not to heed a subpoena on audit reports on the OVP’s liquidation documents regarding its confidential funds.