Presidential spokesperson Hary Roque –INQUIRER PHIOTO/JOAN BONDOC
There is no threat to the life of President Rodrigo Duterte, his spokesman said on Friday, after the country’s top leader claimed that the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) wanted him dead.
“Wala naman po dahil ang Presidente naman ay hindi nababahala sa mga threat sa buhay niya. Ang sabi nga niya, kung panahon na, panahon na. Pero ngayon po wala naman pong ganyang threat,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in an ambush interview in Lipa City, Batangas.
(There is none because the President is not worried about the threats on his life. He said: If it is time, it is time. But now, there is no such threat.)
Duterte has repeatedly said in his public speeches that the CIA has been monitoring and would kill him.
The latest was Tuesday during his speech before members of League of Municipalities of the Philippines Visayas Island Cluster Conference in Cebu City.
READ: Duterte: CIA will kill me
The United States embassy in Manila or the CIA has not made any comment on the claim of Duterte.
Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Oscar Albayalde, in an interview with CNN Philippines’ The Source on Wednesday, said the police have no “specific” information” on the alleged CIA threat against Duterte.
But Albayalde later said in a press briefing at Camp Crame in Quezon City that the PNP was taking the alleged assassination plot against the President “very seriously.”
READ: Albayalde: ‘We take alleged CIA threat vs Duterte seriously’
Asked about the possible “sources of threat” against Duterte, the police chief pointed to the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
READ: ‘NPA, not CIA, source of threat to President’