MANILA, Nov 27 — The Philippines' embattled vice president has accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr today of seeking to remove her from office after the national police filed a formal complaint accusing her of assault and coercion.
In the latest turn in a dramatic fallout between two influential political families, police said Vice President Sara Duterte was involved in recent incidents in the lower house of Congress and at a hospital in which she was responsible for direct assault, disobedience, and grave coercion.
Duterte, the daughter of firebrand former president Rodrigo Duterte, has been the subject of a heated Congressional enquiry into her spending as vice president and education minister, during which she has evaded questions and clashed repeatedly with lawmakers. She denies wrongdoing.
Tempers flared when one of her aides was detained at the complex of the lower house and transferred to a government hospital for medical attention, with Duterte's security team accused by police of pushing a police officer.
"The PNP remains steadfast in its commitment to uphold justice and ensure that all individuals are held accountable under the law, regardless of their position," Philippine National Police chief Rommel Francisco Marbil said.
Duterte told a press conference the complaints "do not hold water".
"I believe we reached the point of no return," she said of her relationship with Marcos.
"It is clear that they are really going after me. They want to remove me from power," Duterte added.
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Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. looks on as he meets with United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, the Philippines, on March 19, 2024. — Picture by REUTERS[/caption]
'No threat'
Duterte has been embroiled in a bitter row with Marcos and his cousin, House Speaker Martin Romualdez, since the collapse of a formidable alliance between their two powerful families that helped Marcos win the 2022 election by a huge margin.
On Saturday (November 23), she said she had hired an assassin to kill the president, his wife, and Romualdez, in the event that she herself was killed, prompting a strong rebuke from Marcos.
Yesterday, Law enforcement officials summoned Duterte for questioning over the statement, which she said had been taken out of context to create a false narrative that Marcos' life was in danger, calling her remarks a "conditional act of revenge."
Duterte has not specified any threat to her life and today said: "There is no active threat if I do not get killed."
The intensification of the row between the Philippines' two most senior office-holders comes just weeks after Duterte's mercurial father was the subject of marathon legislative enquiries into thousands of killings during the notorious "war on drugs" that defined his presidency from 2016 to 2022.
During those hearings, the Marcos administration signalled for the first time that it would cooperate with any international effort to arrest the ex-president, who is under International Criminal Court investigation for possible crimes against humanity.
Rodrigo Duterte told the hearings he was solely responsible for the bloody crackdown and willing to go on trial.
— Reuters
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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte sings to his supporters during a thanksgiving concert held before he ended his six-year term, in Quirino Grandstand, Manila, the Philippines, on June 26, 2022. — Picture by REUTERS[/caption]
