Threatening To Kill President Marcos Jr., Vice President Sara Duterte Examined November 29

JAKARTA - Philippine legal officials summoned Vice President Sara Duterte for questioning for her statement at the weekend about renting a hitman to kill Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. if he does.

Sara Duterte accused the government of distorting its words to create false narratives about Marcos being under active threat.

Calls from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) require Sara Duterte to attend on November 29. Based on the call, a copy of which was seen by Reuters, Duterte will be investigated for alleged violations in the form of serious threats and possible violations of anti-terrorism laws.

In an online press conference on Saturday last weekend, Duterte said he had spoken to a murderer and ordered him to kill Marcos, his wife and cousin, chairman of the Philippine House of Representatives, if he was killed.

Duterte's office said he was not there when a summons was given and had not read the letter. On Monday, Duterte said he would comply if summoned by investigators.

The astonishing statement from the vice president is the latest attack in a fierce dispute that has escalated since the collapse of a strong alliance between their strong families, where Marcos won the 2022 election by a huge margin, and Duterte ran beside him.

Both Marcos and Duterte are the children of the former president.

Marcos said in a national speech on Monday he would fight reckless and disturbing threats against him and would not allow such criminal attempts to occur, without naming Duterte.

Unlike the president, the vice president does not have immunity from prosecution, according to the Ministry of Justice.

In his statement, Duterte said his statement did not threaten Marcos's life.

"I am increasing this vigilance because the President and his colleagues aggressively sell narratives that are entirely based on my statement, which are taken outside of its logical context," Duterte said.

"Be healthy should be enough for us to understand and accept that a conditional revenge is not an active threat," he said.

Duterte's attack on Marcos comes just weeks after his father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, became the subject of a marathon parliamentary investigation into thousands of murders during the war against drugs' which determined his presidency in 2016-2022.