Marcos says he ordered impeachment moves vs VP Sara Duterte stopped

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte. (INQUIRER FILES)

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said on Friday that he had told Congress not to file an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte.

Marcos made the pronouncement after being asked to confirm a text message he supposedly sent to House leaders, which surfaced on Thursday.

“Well, it was actually a private communication, but na-leak na (it got leaked). Yes. Because that’s really my opinion,” said Marcos.

“This is not important. This does not make a difference to even one single Filipino life. So why waste time on it?” he asked.

Marcos further pointed out that an impeachment complaint would only “tie down” both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

“It will just take up all our time and for what? For nothing. For nothing. None of this will help improve a single Filipino life,” said Marcos.

Marcos even described the ongoing political strife between his administration and the Dutertes: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a storm in a teacup.”

Marcos and Duterte, who were running mates in the 2022 elections under the ‘UniTeam’ brand, are in the middle of worsening political clashes over the past months.

It first escalated after the vice president vacated her seat as education secretary in Marcos’ cabinet.

The feud intensified, with Duterte recently revealing that she instructed someone to kill Marcos, his wife First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos and cousin House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she gets killed.

READ: Sara Duterte’s kill remark vs Marcos is ‘active threat’ – Palace

Marcos, for his part, clapped back, stating that he would fight back the apparent threat, tagging her pronouncements “alarming.”

Duterte’s kill plot also shook some agencies and officials to take action, with the Department of Justice, through the National Bureau of Investigation, investigating her for alleged grave threats and possible violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

She is also facing disbarment complaints before the Supreme Court.

The vice president, for her part, repeatedly brushed off these complaints, stating that her kill plot remarks were “taken out of logical context” and that she is only being targeted by critics.