VICE President Sara Duterte-Carpio is putting up a strong stance against crime, raising alarm over an ambush in Maguindanao last week in what a political analyst sees as aligned with her family’s anti-crime posturing.
In a statement on Wednesday, Ms. Duterte-Carpio said the attempt to kill Sharmaine Ceballos Barroquillo — a state physician who was driving her car in Buluan town when she was shot by unidentified gunmen — is just among the many incidents that “mirror the state of security and order in our country.”
“We call on concerned agencies to ensure that our citizens are safe from the threats of criminals, terrorists, and other forces that seek to sow fear in our people,” she said in mixed English and Filipino.
“It’s consistent with the anti-crime Duterte brand that sells itself to our precarious and new middle classes that once voted for them in 2016 and 2022,” Hansley A. Juliano, who teaches politics at Ateneo de Manila University, said in a Facebook Messenger chat.
“It’s quite hollow for Ms. Duterte-Carpio to hop in here when she has never been involved in supporting our medical doctors working in risk areas… and it also belies the secessionist rhetoric of her father and family,” said Mr. Juliano.
Tensions within the alliance between the families of Ms. Duterte-Carpio and President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. had been apparent after administration allies in Congress, which is headed by House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, moved for the removal of her proposed confidential funds as vice president and education secretary from the 2024 national budget.
Earlier this month, her father former president Rodrigo R. Duterte said local political forces would be regrouping in the southern Philippine region of Davao to start a signature campaign for the separation of Mindanao from the Philippines.
He made the remark days after accusing Mr. Marcos of being a drug addict at a political rally in Davao City that opposed the push to amend the 1987 Constitution.
Mr. Duterte also accused Mr. Marcos of wanting to stay in power beyond his term and slammed the International Criminal Court for its investigation of his deadly war on drugs that had killed thousands.
“It benefits Ms. Duterte-Carpio to destabilize or delegitimize the Marcoses so the Dutertes look okay by comparison,” Mr. Juliano said. — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
