A Philippine court on Friday ordered the arrest of Vice President Sara Duterte over alleged grave threats to her former ally, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., his wife, and a former House Speaker.
The warrant against Duterte, 48, set the bail at 120,000 pesos ($1,900) for each of the three counts against her.
“Regardless of the question on jurisdiction, she has no intention of evading the law and will continue to exercise all her legal remedies,” Duterte’s lawyer said in a statement.
Duterte has been charged with threatening the lives of Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez.
The case stems from a November 2024 virtual press conference where the Vice President revealed an apparent assassination plot against Marcos, his wife, and Romualdez.
“I already talked to someone—I told him, If I’m killed, kill [Marcos], Liza Araneta, and Martin Romualdez,” she said in Filipino, “No joke, no joke. I already gave orders. If I die, I told them, ‘Don’t stop until they’re dead.’ And then he said, ‘Yes.’”
The threat is also one of the allegations included in the impeachment complaint against Duterte, on top of alleged misuse of public funds as Vice President and during her stint as Education Secretary. Duterte has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
The Vice President is currently standing trial at the Philippine Senate, serving as an impeachment court, following her second impeachment in May. If convicted in the impeachment court, she could be removed from office and barred from running in the 2028 national elections, where she said she plans to contest the presidency.
Philippine law typically allows candidates to run for public office even if they face pending criminal charges.
Duterte controversies and public standing
Duterte is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, for the thousands of deaths attributed to his violent anti-drug campaign.
The Duterte family still enjoys broad public support in the Philippines, despite the controversies. Recent surveys show Sara Duterte herself is the top preferred candidate by Filipinos to succeed Marcos, whom she had a falling out with. Marcos, who took office in 2022, is limited to a lone six-year term.
The presidential office said in a statement that it “respects the decision of the court” to issue an arrest warrant.
Jean Encinas-Franco, a political science professor at the University of the Philippines, tells TIME that “the law has finally caught up with the Vice President,” but questioned the timing of the arrest warrant’s release. Franco said Duterte’s arrest warrant could successfully repel criticisms that Marcos is a “weak” leader as the impeachment proceedings have dragged on.
However, Franco says it remains unclear which political camp—if any—will benefit from the latest political development. “We don’t know what will happen because it’s still 1-½ years [until the elections] and that’s a lifetime in Philippine politics.”
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