Philippines vice-president says she’ll dig up boss’ dead father and throw him into sea

Manila: Sara Duterte was fed up.

The vice president of the Philippines was facing accusations of corruption in Congress, which she saw as the latest political attack orchestrated by her boss, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. So she called a news conference on Friday.

Duterte rambled for two hours, hurling invectives at Marcos. She said she “wanted to cut his head off” after realising their relationship had turned toxic. At another point, she invoked his father, the longtime dictator, saying she had warned his sister, senator Imee Marcos: “If the attacks don’t stop, I will really dig up your father’s body and throw it in the West Philippine Sea.”

Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr (right) and Vice President Sara Duterte after his swearing-in ceremony in June.Credit: Getty Images

Marcos has said little about his falling out with Duterte, who resigned from his cabinet in June. Earlier this month, he laughed as he told reporters he did not know what his relationship with the vice president was any more. His spokesperson, Cesar Chavez, said the president would not respond to Duterte’s latest comments.

The two had promised national unity when they were elected in 2022. Duterte, daughter of the outgoing president, Rodrigo Duterte, had become the running mate of a fellow scion. The alliance of their notorious political dynasties was supposed to be formidable: the Dutertes’ stronghold is in the south of the Philippines, and the Marcoses hold sway in the north.

But it was a marriage of convenience, and its rupture has been spectacular.

Undergirding the split are different views about what the United States and China mean for the Philippines. Marcos, who spent about five years in Hawaii after his father was ousted and who studied at the Wharton School of Business, sees the United States as a reliable ally that can help him counter China’s aggressive incursions in the South China Sea. Duterte, whose father considers Washington hypocritical and pivoted to Beijing during his presidency, has been notably silent about the Philippines’ tensions with China.

“While they could negotiate local dynamics and the fight at the local level, on this point of whether to be pro-China or pro-US, there was no compromise,” said Ranjit Singh Rye, an assistant professor of political science at the University of the Philippines. “In my view, that’s the unspoken breaking point as far as the alliance is concerned.”

The split has intensified the legal jeopardy Rodrigo Duterte faces from the horrors of his so-called drug war. About 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed during his tenure, many of them victims of summary executions.

He was long seen as being essentially immune to prosecution in the Philippines. But the Marcos administration is reopening cases from that time and has let the International Criminal Court, which is investigating Duterte, send officials to the Philippines to conduct inquiries. This has led some to believe that Marcos would allow the court to arrest his predecessor.

Senator Imee Marcos, the president’s sister. Sara Duterte claimed to have threatened to dig up her father’s body “and throw it in the West Philippine Sea”.Credit: AP

“They made a 180-degree turn,” said Harry Roque, a former spokesperson for Rodrigo Duterte. “Their goal is to really send Duterte to The Hague.”

There is also speculation that Sara Duterte, who is likely to run for president once Marcos’ term ends in 2028, could face impeachment proceedings before then. Polls show that she is still the frontrunner for the next election, though her numbers have slid dramatically because of the conflict with Marcos.

The infighting has kept the government from dealing with many of the structural problems, like unemployment and poverty, that plague this country of roughly 110 million. The midterm elections in May, when voters will pick half of the powerful Senate, are now considered a proxy battle between the two clans.

Marcos “has to destroy the Dutertes”, said Ronald Llamas, a political analyst and former adviser to president Benigno Aquino III, who died in 2021. If the Dutertes do well in the midterms, he said, they will get back at the Marcoses “with a vengeance”.

People protest against extrajudicial killings in 2018. About 30,000 people are estimated to have been killed during Rodrigo Duterte’s tenure, many of them victims of summary executions.Credit: New York Times

The Philippines elects its president and vice president separately, and it is not unusual to find them on opposite sides of an issue. But never has the state been so consumed by such a feud.

Martin Romualdez, the speaker of the House of Representatives and a cousin of the president, is overseeing a months-long inquiry into the Duterte administration, including the extrajudicial killings and the ramifications of the pro-China policy. Rodrigo Duterte was invited to testify on Tuesday but declined.

In the past few weeks, the public has been told by a retired police colonel that Duterte paid cash for drug killings (he denies this); that the elected mayor of the municipality of Bamban, who was photographed with Duterte, could be a Chinese spy; and that the brother of a former adviser to Duterte has links to a criminal network that runs scam compounds.

Marcos – widely known by his childhood nickname, Bongbong – first met Sara Duterte in October 2021, when his sister, the senator, brokered a meeting. He formally joined the presidential race a few months later, even though Duterte was the clear frontrunner and was facing pressure from her father to run.

In November 2021, Duterte stunned the country by announcing that she would run alongside Marcos on a platform of unity. People who know her say she was keen to show she was independent of her father.

The candidates called themselves the “Uniteam”. But at Marcos’ headquarters, Duterte’s allies were only allowed to access the “Sara floor”, according to Roque. Duterte ran her campaign from her own headquarters, he said.

“It was either you’re a Team Duterte or Team Marcos,” said Roque, who was in hiding because he faces an arrest warrant on contempt charges for failing to attend a hearing in Congress.

After the election, Duterte’s camp asked Marcos to allot half of the cabinet to her allies – a request that shocked the president, according to a person close to Marcos. One of the first public signs of friction was when Duterte was denied the defence portfolio, something she had expressly coveted.

Former president Rodrigo Duterte, pictured in April, was invited to testify on Tuesday but declined.Credit: Getty Images

The turning point in the relationship came in May 2023, when the House unexpectedly removed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a former president, as senior deputy speaker.

Arroyo is a mentor of Duterte, and the move infuriated the vice president. Some observers said that Arroyo had been trying to oust Romualdez, so he moved first. In a social media post, Duterte called Romualdez a “shameless monster” and later denounced “political toxicity.”

“That case with Martin triggered everything,” said Salvador Panelo, Rodrigo Duterte’s lawyer, referring to Romualdez. “If Bongbong intervened, the alliance might still be alive today.”

Around that time, the first lady, Liza Araneta, went public with her disdain for Sara Duterte.

Then came scrutiny of Duterte’s use of discretionary funds that are typically not subject to strict government audit. Last October, the House of Representatives announced that it was blocking the discretionary funds requested in the 2024 budgets of two agencies headed by Duterte.

The infighting has kept the government from dealing with many of the Philippines’ structural problems, such as unemployment and poverty.Credit: Daniel Ceng

In January, the Dutertes held an expletive-laden “prayer rally” in the city of Davao, their home base. Mayor Sebastian Duterte, a son of Rodrigo Duterte, said Marcos should think of the fates that befell the Romanovs and Benito Mussolini. (They were assassinated.)

“And think of what happened to you in 1986, and maybe you’ll reconsider the direction that you are taking,” he added, referring to the year Marcos’ family fled to Hawaii after enormous public protests ousted his father.

Few believe that the relationship between the two dynasties can be repaired. Last month, after Sara Duterte said she was “never friends” with Marcos, the president said he was a “little dismayed”.

“I always thought that we were,” Marcos told reporters. “But maybe I was deceived.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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