The Philippines’ Justice Department on Monday accused Vice President Sara Duterte of being the “mastermind” of a plot to assassinate the country’s president and gave her five days to respond to a summons.
Duterte is being asked to explain himself in the wake of a bombshell weekend press conference where he said he had directed that President Ferdinand Marcos be killed if an alleged plot to assassinate him succeeded.
“The government is taking action to protect our duly elected president,” Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres said at a Monday press conference.
“The premeditated plot to assassinate the President declared by a self-styled mastermind will now face legal consequences.”
Speaking to reporters an hour later, Duterte said he planned to respond to the subpoena.
“I’ll happily answer any questions they want to ask, but they’ll have to answer my questions too,” she said.
“We will talk there when I get the summons.”
In his first public comments on the matter, Marcos earlier in the day vowed to “fight back” in the face of the threat he called “troubling.”
The Marcos-Duterte coalition that swept to power in 2022 has collapsed spectacularly in the lead up to next year’s midterm elections, with both sides alleging drug addiction.
Duterte, facing a possible impeachment trial, told reporters early Saturday that she herself was the victim of an assassination plot and that she had directed that Marcos be killed if it succeeded.
In an expletive-filled press conference, Duterte also singled out First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and the president’s cousin Martin Romualdez as potential targets.
“I said, if I die, don’t stop until you kill them,” he claimed he told a member of the security team about the three.
A few hours later, the Rashtrapati Bhavan said it was treating the comments as an “active threat”.
“Such a criminal attempt should not go unchallenged,” Marcos said Monday. “As a democratic country, we need to uphold the rule of law.”
“The vice president does not have immunity from suit. She can be the subject of any criminal or administrative case,” Andres told reporters. He said the summons is in the process of being served.
He said a “killer” allegedly involved by Duterte was being sought.
alliance exposed
Duterte, daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, was Marcos’s running mate in the 2022 presidential election, with her ticket registering a landslide victory.
If he is unable to complete his six-year term, she will remain his constitutional successor.
But she is currently facing an investigation in the House of Representatives led by Romualdez.
Both Romualdez and Duterte are widely expected to run for president in 2028.
Duterte’s Saturday press conference came as House officials threatened to transfer his chief of staff Zuleika Lopez — on contempt charges — from the lower house detention center to a correctional facility.
Lopez has been detained since Wednesday, when he was charged with allegedly interfering in the investigation of Duterte’s finances.
In June, Duterte resigned from his Cabinet post of Education Secretary as relations between the two families reached breaking point.
A few months earlier, his father had accused Marcos of being a “drug addict”, with the president claiming the next day that his predecessor’s health was deteriorating due to long-term use of the powerful opioid fentanyl.
Neither of them has provided any evidence for their allegations.
In October, Duterte said he felt “used” after teaming up with Marcos for the 2022 elections.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
