Sara backtracks on remarks vs Marcos

Vice President Sara Duterte —Inquirer file photo/Richard A. Reyes

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Justice (DOJ) has started looking into Vice President Sara Duterte’s threat to have President Marcos, first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and Speaker Martin Romualdez assassinated should she be killed, according to the Presidential Communications Office (PCO).

“The matter is now subject to an ongoing investigation. If the evidence warrants, this could lead to eventual prosecution,” the PCO said on Sunday, quoting the DOJ.

But in a press briefing on Saturday, just hours after she made the “active threat” against Marcos, his wife, and Romualdez during a profanity-laced rant in an online news conference, a calmer Duterte stressed that what she said was “not a threat.”

READ: VP Sara publicly threatens to have the president assassinated

According to her, it was just a warning about her planned “revenge from the grave” should she end up dead amid a threat to her life.

“They say there’s a threat on the life of the President. Why would I kill him if not for revenge from the grave? There’s no reason to kill him. What benefit do I get from that?” Duterte said.

“It’s fine if I’m the heir to their stolen wealth, but I’m not. What is the benefit from that?” she added.

Just talk

Duterte likened her remark to her earlier statement about exhuming the body of the President’s father and his namesake, and dumping it into the West Philippine Sea.

“Talking about doing it is not actionable,” she said.

On Sunday morning, before Duterte left the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC) in Quezon City, where her chief of staff Zuleika Lopez had been taken the day before after suffering a panic attack, the Vice President was again asked about her statement. “As I said, I’m tired right now, but [at] the proper time, I can answer everything. I’m just in a hurry,” she told reporters.

Duterte added that Lopez had told her she wanted to resign from the Office of the Vice President and finish attending the House inquiry being conducted by the committee on good government and public accountability so she could go home to Davao City.

“Nothing was said yet [regarding the effectivity of resignation]. What she also said was she just wants to finish her part in the hearings and [for the lawmakers] to ask all the questions they want to ask so she can go home,” she said.

Duterte, meanwhile, told reporters on Sunday she had to “plead” with Lopez to allow her to leave VMMC to visit her family, as they were still worried about her safety.

“But she told me to come back in the evening for fear that she might be taken away again at night,” the Vice President added.