Summary
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte publicly threatened to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife, and the House Speaker assassinated if she were killed, escalating tensions between the two leaders.
Duterte accused Marcos and his allies of corruption, incompetence, and persecuting her staff, sparking the tirade.
The Presidential Security Command deemed the threat a national security issue and boosted Marcos’ protection.
This marks a severe fallout in their alliance after their 2022 election victory, amid broader political divisions and Duterte’s growing criticism of the administration.
This is a really big deal because when they were elected in 2022, the Marcos and Duterte families had combined their respective power bases into a juggernaut of Filipino politics. But each family developed their power base in a different part of the country, Marcos secured the capital and the northern islands while Duterte rules Mindinao, the largest island, and the other islands in the south.
Then something happened and the families learned to not like each other.
This is a big problem as each has extensive government alliances to the families and each family runs their area like strongmen dictators. It won’t be a civil war, but they are prepared to be very uncivil.