Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.
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A resident returns to what remains of a home in the aftermath of Typhoon Kalmaegi that devastated communities along the Mananga River in Talisay, Philippines, on November 5, 2025.
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A fishing boat is hoisted to the ground ahead of Typhoon Kalmaegi in Quang Ngai, Vietnam, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2025.
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Manila:

The widening rift between the two most powerful political families in the Philippines became public after the Southeast Asian nation’s Vice President Sara Duterte said that she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assassinated if she were to be killed. Mr Duterte is the daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte.

Now, the law and order authorities in the Philippines are “investigating” the threats made by their Vice President, and Ms Duterte could be prosecuted if evidence is found supporting her claim. 

“Duterte’s threats are now under investigation and may lead to charges,” the Presidential Communications Office said, citing the justice ministry.

“If the evidence warrants, this could lead to eventual prosecution,” Mr Marcos’ office said in a statement.

The Philippines’ security council has also taken cognisance matter and is “verifying” the alleged assassination threat. National Security Adviser Eduardo Ano said the government considers all threats to the president as “serious”, vowing to closely work with law enforcement and intelligence communities to investigate the threat and possible perpetrators.

“Any and all threats against the life of the president shall be validated and considered a matter of national security,” Mr Ano said in a statement.

VP’s Threat & Response

Addressing a press conference on Saturday morning, Ms Duterte said, “I have spoken to someone. I told them, if I am killed, go and kill BBM [Marcos], [First Lady] Liza Araneta, and [Speaker] Martin Romualdez. No joke. No joke.”

“I said, do not stop until they are dead, and the person agreed,” said added, as quoted by news agency Reuters.

Duterte’s threat stemmed from an order by lawmakers to transfer her chief-of-staff to jail for allegedly impeding its probe over the vice president’s alleged misuse of public funds.

In response to Duterte’s threat, Marcos’ presidential security command said it had tightened its protocols in guarding the Philippine leader and the national police chief had ordered an investigation.

Rife Between Philippines’s Political Families

Sara Duterte, the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, and Mr Marcos were once political partners who won an overwhelming mandate to lead the nation’s top two offices in 2022. The alliance crumbled this year over policy differences, including foreign policy and the elder Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

Marcos’ congressional allies are separately investigating Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign which led to more than 6,000 killed in anti-drug operations and alleged corruption over Sara Duterte’s use of public funds during her tenure as education secretary. Both have denied wrongdoing.

Ms Duterte resigned from the Marcos cabinet in June while remaining vice president, signalling the collapse of a formidable political alliance that helped her and Mr Marcos, son and namesake of the late authoritarian leader, to secure their 2022 electoral victories by wide margins.

Following this, Speaker Romualdez, a cousin of Mr Marcos, slashed the vice presidential office’s budget by nearly two-thirds.

Ms Duterte’s outburst is the latest in a series of startling signs of the feud at the top of Philippine politics. In October, she accused Mr Marcos of incompetence and said she had imagined cutting the president’s head off.

Philippines’ System Of Governance

In the Philippines, the vice president is elected separately from the president and has no official duties. Many vice presidents have pursued social development activities, while some have been appointed to cabinet posts.

The country is gearing up for mid-term elections in May, seen as a litmus test of Mr Marcos’ popularity and a chance for him to consolidate power and groom a successor before his single six-year term ends in 2028.

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte listens as she attends a joint committee hearing of the House of Representatives in Quezon City. File.
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Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte said on Saturday (November 23, 2024) she has contracted an assassin to kill the 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.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin referred the “active threat” against 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 the Vice-President.

The Presidential Security Command immediately boosted Mr. Marcos’ security and said it considered the Vice-President’s threat, which was “made so brazenly in public,” a national security issue.

The 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.”

Mr. Marcos ran with Ms. 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.

The two leaders and their camps, however, rapidly had a bitter falling-out over key differences, including in their approaches to China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Ms. Duterte resigned from the Marcos Cabinet in June as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body.

Like her equally outspoken father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, the Vice-President became a vocal critic of Mr. Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s ally and cousin, accusing them of corruption, incompetence and politically persecuting the Duterte family and its close supporters.

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. Lopez was later transferred to a hospital after falling ill and wept when she heard of a plan to temporarily lock her up in a women’s prison.

In a pre-dawn 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 lawyer suggested there was an unspecified plot to kill her. “Don’t worry about my security because I’ve talked with somebody. I said ‘if I’m killed, you’ll kill BBM, Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez. No joke, no joke,’” the vice president said without elaborating and using the initials that many use to call the president.

“I’ve given my order, ‘If I die, don’t stop until you’ve killed them.’ And he said, ’yes,’” the Vice President said.

Under the Philippine penal code, such public remarks may constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or his family and is punishable by a jail term and fine.

Amid the political divisions, military chief Gen. Romeo Brawner issued a statement with an assurance that the 160,000-member Armed Forces of the Philippines would remain nonpartisan “with utmost respect for our democratic institutions and civilian authority.”

“We call for calm and resolve,” Brawner said. “We reiterate our need to stand together against those who will try to break our bonds as Filipinos.”

The Vice President is the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, whose police-enforced anti-drugs crackdown when he was a city mayor and later as president left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead in killings that the International Criminal Court has been investigating as a possible crime against humanity.

The former President denied authorizing extrajudicial killings under his crackdown but has given conflicting statements. He told a public Philippine Senate inquiry last month that he had maintained a “death squad” of gangsters to kill other criminals when he was mayor of southern Davao city.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. File
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Malaysia has protested new maritime laws in the Philippines that it says encroach on its territory, a government official said Friday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mohamad Alamin said Malaysia sent a protest note on Thursday over the Philippine laws. Experts have found that reference documents related to the laws restated Manila’s long-standing claim over the oil-rich Malaysian state of Sabah in northern Borneo, he said.

Last week, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. signed the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act, which reaffirmed the country’s maritime territories and right to resources, including in the South China Sea. They further cement Manila’s rejection of Chinese claims to virtually the entire South China Sea and stipulate jail terms and stiff fines for violators. The laws have also angered China.

China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Brunei, Indonesia and Taiwan all claim parts of the South China Sea. Confrontations between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and naval forces in the sea have surged since last year, sparking fears that the United States — Manila’s longtime treaty ally — might get drawn into a major conflict.

Mohamad Alamin was quoted by local media as saying in Parliament on Thursday that the new Philippine laws extend its claims into Malaysian boundaries mapped out in 1979 that were internationally recognized. He said the protest note demonstrated Malaysia’s commitment to defend its sovereignty.

Sabah, which is two hours away by boat from the southern Philippines, and neighboring Sarawak on Borneo became part of Malaysia in 1963. The Philippines has long laid claims to Sabah, which was once part of the centuries-old sultanate of Sulu.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr has warned China not to cross a red line in the South China Sea, saying If any Filipino died as a result of Beijing’s wilful actions, Manila would consider it as close to “an act of war” and respond accordingly.

Addressing the defence-and-security focused Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore on Friday night, Mr. Marcos sought to deepen defence cooperation with the U.S. as he stands up to the Chinese military’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea.

“We shall strengthen our alliances with the United States and our strategic partnerships with Australia, Japan, Vietnam, Brunei, and all the other member states of ASEAN. We will also pursue more robust collaborations with countries such as the Republic of Korea, India amongst others,” Mr. Marcos said.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea, though Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam claim parts of it.

Mr. Marcos said the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries had a vision for “peace, stability, and prosperity” in the South China Sea, but that this was being undermined by other actors.

“Unfortunately, this vision remains for now a distant reality. Illegal, coercive, aggressive, and deceptive actions continue to violate our sovereignty, sovereign rights, and jurisdiction,” Mr. Marcos said.

“If a Filipino citizen was killed by a wilful act, that is very close to what we define as an act of war,” he said.

“We would have crossed the Rubicon. Is that a red line? Almost certainly,” he asserted.

China’s determining influence over the security situation and the economic evolution of this region is a permanent fact, he said.

“At the same time, the stabilising presence of the United States is crucial to regional peace. It’s never a choice. Both countries are important,” he underscored.

Mr. Marcos pointed out that security in the South China Sea, through which a huge volume of trade passes, is a global issue.

Mr. Marcos said tensions between the U.S. and China were destabilising for Southeast Asia, calling on Washington and Beijing to work harder to resolve disputes.

“Their rivalry is constraining the strategic choices of regional states. Their contest is exacerbating flashpoints and has created new security dilemmas,” Mr. Marcos said.

“The continued stability of this region requires China and the United States to manage their rivalry in a responsible manner,” he said.

Manila and Beijing have a long history of maritime territorial disputes, but tensions have worsened under Mr. Marcos, who has insisted the Philippines will not give up a “square inch of our territory”.

In recent months the simmering dispute between China and the Philippines over territory in the South China Sea has sharpened into aggressive clashes. Manila has denounced Chinese patrol ships firing water cannons at Philippine boats and supply vessels, injuring some personnel.

Mr. Marcos said on Friday that the South China Sea dispute is an issue that goes beyond the Asia-Pacific region.

The peace and stability of the South China Sea and the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is a world issue, Mr. Marcos said.

The Philippines, a treaty ally of the U.S., is a key focus of Washington’s efforts to strengthen alliances and partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region as it seeks to counter China’s growing military might and influence.

Given its position in the South China Sea and proximity to self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, Philippine support would be crucial for the U.S. in the event of any conflict.

The Philippines expanded a 2014 agreement last year to give U.S. military access to another four of its military bases, taking the total number to nine, including two in the far north of the country, less than 450km from Taiwan.

The Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) also allows U.S. troops to rotate through and store defence equipment and supplies.

The U.S.’ growing presence in the region and its regular deployment of warships and fighter jets in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea have infuriated Chinese leaders in Beijing.

China has accused the U.S. of using the Philippines as a “pawn to stir up trouble in the South China Sea”, according to U.S.-China affair watchers and analysts.

China’s Defence Minister Admiral Dong Jun is scheduled to address the annual Dialogue on Sunday and is expected to respond to China-related issues on the South China Sea.

The security forum in Singapore was attended by U.S. Defence Secretary Austin and defence chiefs from around the world.