Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte on Saturday said she has contracted an assassin to kill the Philippine president, his wife and the House of Representatives speaker if she herself is killed, in a brazen public threat that she warned was not a joke.
Philippine Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred to the “active threat” against Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr to an elite presidential guards force “for immediate proper action.” It was not immediately clear what actions would be taken against Duterte.
The Philippine Presidential Security Command boosted Marcos’ security and said it considered Duterte’s threat, which was “made so brazenly in public,” a national security issue.
Photo: AP
The presidential security force said it was “coordinating with law enforcement agencies to detect, deter and defend against any and all threats to the president and the first family.”
Duterte, a lawyer, later tried to walk back her remarks and said they were not an actual threat, but only an expression of concern over an unspecified threat to her own life.
“If I expressed the concern, they will say that’s a threat to the life of the president?” she said.
“Why would I kill him if not for revenge from the grave? There is no reason for me to kill him. What’s the benefit for me?” Duterte told journalists.
Under the Philippine penal code, such public remarks could constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or their family and is punishable by a jail term and fine.
The Philippine constitution states that if a president dies, sustains a permanent disability, is removed from office or resigns, the vice president takes over and serves the rest of the term.
Marcos ran with Duterte as his vice-presidential running mate in the May 2022 elections and both won with landslide victories on a campaign call of national unity.
However, the two leaders and their camps rapidly had a bitter falling-out over key differences, including in their approaches to China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.
Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as Philippine secretary of education and head of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, an anti-insurgency body formed during the administration of her father, former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte.
Her latest tirade was set off by the decision by House members allied with Romualdez and Marcos to detain her chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, who was accused of hampering a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of her budget as vice president and education secretary.
In a predawn online news conference, an angry Sara Duterte accused Marcos of incompetence as a president and of being a liar, along with his wife and the House speaker in expletives-laden remarks.
When asked about concerns over her security, the 46-year-old said there was an unspecified plot to kill her.
“I have talked to a person. I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [Marcos], [first lady] Liza Araneta and [Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke,” she said.
“I said, do not stop until you kill them, and then he said yes,” she added.
The Taiwanese passport ranked 33rd in a global listing of passports by convenience this month, rising three places from last month’s ranking, but matching its position in January last year. The Henley Passport Index, an international ranking of passports by the number of designations its holder can travel to without a visa, showed that the Taiwan passport enables holders to travel to 139 countries and territories without a visa. Singapore’s passport was ranked the most powerful with visa-free access to 192 destinations out of 227, according to the index published on Tuesday by UK-based migration investment consultancy firm Henley and Partners. Japan’s and
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
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A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
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