Rift between two political families in Philippines intensifies as ...
Rift between two political families in Philippines intensifies as assassination remarks emerge
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (right) and Vice President Sara Duterte attend an education-related event in Manila on January 25, 2024. Photo: IC
The rift between the president and the vice president of the Philippines has gone public as the Vice President Sara Duterte, who is the daughter of the former president Rodrigo Duterte, recently warned that if she herself were killed, she would have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assassinated.
Chinese analysts said the political struggle within the Philippines is intensifying largely due to internal political issues, but it could add uncertainties to the future policymaking of Manila on regional hot spot issues, so relevant parties are paying close attention to the development of the situation.
Philippine security agencies stepped up safety protocols on Saturday after the remarks made by Sara Duterte, according to Reuters report. In a dramatic sign of a widening rift between the two most powerful political families in the Southeast Asian nation, Sara Duterte told an early morning press conference that she had spoken to a "person" instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife, and the speaker of the Philippine House, if she were to be killed, Reuters reported.
"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," Sara Duterte said in the profanity-laden briefing. "I said, do not stop until you kill them and then he said yes," CNN reported on Saturday.
She was reportedly responding to an online commenter urging her to stay safe, saying she was in enemy territory as she was at the lower chamber of Congress overnight with her chief of staff. Sara Duterte did not cite any alleged threat against herself.
"This country is going to hell because we are led by a person who doesn't know how to be a president and who is a liar," she said in the briefing.
Sara Duterte, the daughter of Marcos' predecessor, resigned from the Marcos' cabinet in June while remaining vice president, signaling the collapse of a formidable political alliance that helped her and Marcos Jr. secure their 2022 electoral victories by wide margins, according to CNN.
The Presidential Communications Office said any threat to the life of the president must always be taken seriously, Reuters reported.
However, Sara Duterte told reporters on Saturday afternoon: "Thinking and talking about it is different from actually doing it," adding there was already a threat to her life. "When that happens, there will be an investigation on my death. The investigation on their deaths will be next."
Sara Duterte's remarks highlight the division between the two families - Marcos' and Duterte's, which could influence the country's upcoming midterm elections in 2025, said Li Kaisheng, vice president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies.
The Philippines is gearing up for mid-term elections in May, seen as a litmus test of Marcos' popularity and a chance for him to consolidate power and groom a successor before his single six-year term ends in 2028, CNN reported.
For politics in the Philippines, political parties usually align with the powerful political families. Therefore, the tensions between the president and the vice president may cause some backlash to the Marcos' administration's policies in the Duterte family's political strongholds in the south of the country, but are unlikely to result in large-scale divisions and unrests across the country, Li noted.
The two families are at odds over issues including foreign policy and former president Rodrigo Duterte's "war on drugs," Reuters reported. Marcos' congressional allies are investigating the former president and the vice president on relevant issues, including the elder Duterte's anti-drug operations and alleged corruption over the younger Duterte's "use of public funds during her tenure as education secretary," according to CNN.
According to AP, former President Rodrigo Duterte has registered on October 8 to run for mayor of his southern home city Davao.
Rodrigo Duterte and Marcos Jr. have held very different stances and approaches in handling the South China Sea issues with China. The former president successfully stabilized the regional hot spot issue and realized peaceful and win-win cooperation ties with China, while Marcos Jr. has unilaterally changed the status quo and stoked tensions in the region after he took office, making the Philippines a pawn on the chessboard of the US game of great power competition, said Li Haidong, a professor at China Foreign Affairs University.
"However, the foreign policy is not the root cause of the internal political struggle of the Philippines, but the struggle could impact and add uncertainties to the future policymaking of Manila on relevant issues, so relevant parties are paying close attention to what would happen next," the expert said.
Xu Liping, director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday that "the Marcos and the Duterte families were allies in the last election, and now they have big disagreements on internal and external policies. It seems like the Marcos family didn't take care of the concerns of the family of Duterte."
With the intensified political struggle, the Philippines' society might be further divided, and this is not good news for the stability of the country, as the future policymaking of Manila will be more uncertain, Xu said, noting that the Marcos Jr administration could possibly play a "nationalist card" and become more provocative on the South China Sea issue to handle internal pressure.
