Marcos vows to fight after kill threat

By Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza, Reporter

PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. on Monday said he would not stand idly following recent kill remarks made against him and his wife by Vice-President Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio, who has been rumbling amid a congressional probe of her questionable confidential funds.

The President’s statement — the first since his former ally disclosed that she had ordered her security personnel to kill the Philippine leader, his wife, Marie Louise Araneta-Marcos, and House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez, if she was killed, has triggered stronger action from the government, with the Justice department saying the Vice-President will face legal consequences.

Such criminal plans should not be underestimated, Mr. Marcos said in a strongly worded video statement, in which he vowed to never let anyone drag his country into gutter-level politics.

“I will fight back,” he said in Filipino.

Mr. Marcos said the statements he heard in the previous days were troubling, citing reckless use of profanities and threats to their lives.

“If plotting the assassination of the president is that easy, how much more for ordinary citizens?”

Ms. Duterte, the country’s second highest official, made the remark in a news briefing past midnight of Saturday, after the House Committee on Good Government ordered the transfer of her chief of staff, Zuleika T. Lopez, to the Women’s Correctional Facility in Mandaluyong City from the lower chamber’s detention facility.

Congressional questions into her confidential funds at the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education began last year, seeing major political realignments in less than two years after the May 2022 elections, where Mr. Marcos and Ms. Duterte ran as a tandem.

In the Philippines, the President and the Vice-President are elected separately and may come from different political parties.

Mr. Romualdez countered attempts to dismiss the statement as a “joke,” adding the statement was a “direct warning to our democracy, to our peace, and to the security of the country.”

“Such statement is not just reckless, it is dangerous. It sends a chilling message to our people,” he said as he addressed legislators during Monday’s plenary session.

He also accused the Vice-President of diverting attention as the chamber uncovers mounting evidence of fund misuse under her leadership as Vice-President and during her term as Education secretary.

“We will not tolerate and accept vague explanations and evasive responses,” he said. “Accountability is not optional. Transparency is not negotiable. Those entrusted with public funds must be prepared to explain where it was disbursed and how these resources were utilized.”

Earlier in the day, Ms. Duterte stood firm that her statement was “maliciously taken out of logical context.”

She was particularly responding to a statement by the National Security Council (NSC), issued on Sunday, which said the Vice-President’s threats against the President is “a matter of national security.”

Ms. Duterte questioned why, as a member of the NSC, the council has not invited her to its meetings.

“I would like to see a copy of the notice of meeting with proof of service, the list of attendees, photos of the meeting, and the notarized minutes of meeting where the Council, whether present or past, resolved to consider the remarks by a Vice-President against a President, maliciously taken out of logical context, as a national security concern,” she said.

Later in the day, when asked to comment on the President’s video statement after attending a congressional hearing, Ms. Duterte accused the Marcos family of being behind the assassination of the late Philippine democracy icon Benigno Simeon Aquino, Jr.

Mr. Aquino’s death triggered a popular uprising in 1986, ending the nine-year military rule of Mr. Marcos’ father, the late President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr.

Mr. Marcos, who was set to fly to the United Arab Emirates later in the day for a one-day working visit, said recent events would not have led to such a “drama” had questions in both houses of Congress been answered.

“Ang katotohanan ay hindi dapat i-tokhang [The truth should not be killed),” he added, alluding to a colloquial term that has been used to describe former President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign, which is now a subject of an International Criminal Court investigation.

Following Ms. Duterte’s remarks, the presidential palace has tightened its security protocols.

Presidential Security Command Nestor Endozo told reporters inside the Malacañang compound on Monday morning that they have doubled the security personnel deployed to Mr. Marcos, adding that stronger security rules will be enforced during his upcoming activities.

The Department of Justice, in a Palace briefing in the afternoon, cited “premeditated plot to assassinate the President.”

The “self-confessed mastermind will now face legal consequences,” Justice Undersecretary Jesse Hermogenes T. Andres said.

“We are tapping our law enforcement agents to investigate the whereabouts and the identity of this person or persons who may be plotting against the President,” he added.

Mr. Andres said the National Bureau of Investigation will issue a subpoena to Ms. Duterte so she could clarify her remarks.

Anthony Lawrence A. Borja, a political science professor at the De

La Salle University in Manila, said Mr. Marcos’ statement was “measured” and “dignified.”

It was an indirect expression of anger, which is different from the “Duterte’s explicitly direct and personal attacks,” he added in a Facebook Messenger chat.

In his statement, Mr. Marcos said that “as a democratic country, we need to uphold the rule of law.”

“I, as the head of the Executive branch, and other government officials have a vow to uphold the Constitution and the laws,” he added.

Mr. Borja said Mr. Marcos’ statement “was also a dismissal of the Duterte’s narrative as mere gossiping and regressive, and a drawing of lines between those for and against a supposed rule of law and plain governance.”

“However, with “burak ng pulitika” (dirt in politics) the president sacrifices the idea of politics itself in favor of his anti-political emphasis on “trabaho lang” (strictly business) within government,” he added, referring to Mr. Marcos’ remark that he will not allow anyone to drag the country into dirty politics.

“It is as if Sara Duterte’s rants embody politics and his response doesn’t.”

“We must ask, how much space will this leave for other forms of opposition and will his assertion of the rule of law be extended to areas of clear injustices outside the Marcos-Duterte feud,” the academic said.

The 149-member League of Cities of the Philippines Ms. Duterte’s “recent outburst” is “both unbecoming and reckless.”

Her kill remarks were “deeply irresponsible” and were a grave “threat to our democracy,” it said in a statement signed by its Acting President Quezon City Mayor Joy G. Belmonte and its Chairman Bacolod City Mayor Alfredo Abelardo B. Benitez.

The League said the Vice-President’s use of public funds “must be addressed in a manner benefitting the gravity of public trust, not through accusations, name-calling, or divisive conduct.”