Philippines VP Sara Duterte says she will have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr assassinated if she is killed
Security protocols in the Philippines have been stepped up after vice president Sara Duterte vowed to have the president assassinated if she herself were killed.
The daughter of the country’s previous president Rodrigo Duterte, the politician said she had contracted an assassin to kill the president, his wife and the House of Representatives speaker.
Speaking in an online briefing, she said: “I have talked to a person. I said, if I get killed, go kill BBM [the nickname of Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr], Liza Araneta [the first lady], and Martin Romualdez [the speaker and the president’s second cousin]. No joke. No joke.”
The 46-year-old lawyer went on: “I said, do not stop until you kill them, and then he said yes.”
Ms Duterte and President Marcos with first lady Liza Araneta-Marcos (right) and their son Sandro (left) in 2022. Pic: Reuters
She was responding to an online commenter urging her to stay safe when staying in the lower chamber of Congress overnight with her chief of staff.
Under the Philippine penal code, such public remarks may constitute a crime of threatening to inflict a wrong on a person or his family and is punishable by a jail term and fine.
In October, Ms Duterte accused President Marcos of incompetence and said she had imagined cutting his head off.
The country’s executive secretary Lucas Bersamin described her latest comments as an “active threat” against the president and said an elite presidential guards force would prepare “for immediate proper action”.
“Acting on the vice president’s clear and unequivocal statement that she had contracted an assassin to kill the president if an alleged plot against her succeeds, the executive secretary has referred this active threat to the Presidential Security Command for immediate proper action,” a government statement said.
It went on: “Any threat to the life of the president must always be taken seriously, more so that this threat has been publicly revealed in clear and certain terms.”
The comments are the latest in a rift between Ms Duterte and President Marcos, who both hail from powerful political families in the Southeast Asian nation.
The vice president’s father is ex-president Rodrigo Duterte. Pic: Reuters
Former allies at loggerheads
Mr Marcos – who is the son and namesake of the late authoritarian leader – ran with Ms Duterte as his vice presidential running mate in the May 2022 elections and both won with landslide victories on a campaign call of national unity.
They have since fallen out over issues including their approaches to China’s aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea.
In June, Ms Duterte resigned from Mr Marcos’s cabinet as education secretary and head of an anti-insurgency body. She remains in post as vice president, which is elected separately from the president and has no official duties.
Ms Duterte has accused the president and those around him of corruption, incompetence and politically persecuting her family and her family’s supporters.
Their latest dispute has been over the detaining of Ms Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, who has been accused of hampering a congressional inquiry into the possible misuse of Ms Duterte’s budget as vice president and education secretary.
Amid the political divisions, military chief general Romeo Brawner issued a statement with an assurance that the 160,000-member armed forces of the Philippines would remain non-partisan “with utmost respect for our democratic institutions and civilian authority”.
“We call for calm and resolve,” Mr Brawner said. “We reiterate our need to stand together against those who will try to break our bonds as Filipinos.”
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Mr Marcos’s predecessor, and the father of Ms Duterte, Rodrigo Duterte is well known for his police-enforced anti-drugs crackdown when he was a city mayor and later as president, which left thousands of mostly petty drug suspects dead in killings that the International Criminal Court has been investigating as a possible crime against humanity.
Mr Duterte denied authorising extrajudicial killings under his crackdown but has given conflicting statements. He told a public Philippine Senate inquiry last month that he had maintained a “death squad” of gangsters to kill other criminals when he was mayor of Davao City.
The Philippines is gearing up for mid-term elections in May, with Mr Marcos’s six-year term ending in 2028.
World
Up to a million Palestinians could be ‘permanently relocated’ to war-torn Libya under US plans
Up to a million Palestinians could be permanently relocated from devastated Gaza to war-torn Libya under plans being worked on by Donald Trump’s administration, NBC News reports.
The idea has been discussed with Libya’s leadership, sources told Sky’s US partner network, and would potentially see billions of dollars in frozen Libyan funds released.
The North African country remains divided in two – nearly 14 years after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi sparked a civil war – with two rival governments fighting for control.
It comes as Israel continues a campaign of airstrikes on Gaza, with 93 people killed and hundreds injured on Friday, according to local medics.
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Sky’s team saw bodies arrive at Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital
No final agreement on any Libya plans have been reached, sources told NBC News, and US government agencies did not respond to requests for comment from the news outlet.
Previous suggestions to resettle Palestinians from Gaza – voluntarily or otherwise – have provoked international outcry, particularly from Arab states who likely will play a role in rebuilding the enclave after any permanent ceasefire deal.
And Libya is far from a safe nation, according to the US State Department’s own travel advice, which says Americans should not travel to the country “due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict”.
President Trump, speaking on the final day of his Middle East trip, said he was looking to resolve a range of global crises, including Gaza.
“We’re looking at Gaza,” he said. “And we’ve got to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving. A lot of people are – there’s a lot of bad things going on.”
An Israeli tank nears the border with Gaza. Pic: Reuters
There had been hopes that his tour of the region could increase the chances of a ceasefire deal or prompt Israel to lift its blockade of Gaza that is preventing humanitarian aid from getting in.
But instead Israel has continued to launch airstrikes on the territory, killing more than 250 people in the last two days, according to Hamas-run health authorities.
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The Israeli military, which had dropped leaflets on the northern town of Beit Lahia ordering residents to leave, said their airforce had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza in recent days.
This week, Israel said it had bombed the European Hospital because it was home to an underground Hamas base, but Sky News analysis has cast doubt on its evidence.
Israeli officials said the latest strikes were a prelude to a larger military campaign in Gaza aimed at pressuring Hamas to release hostages.
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Ahmed Abu Riziq, founder of the Gaza Great Minds Foundation, which seeks to give children access to education in Gaza, said “the hell doors opened” in the last few days.
Speaking to Sky News from Gaza City, he said: “Myself with my family, we had to flee today from some certain areas in northern Gaza City… people are running in the streets. They don’t know where to go or where to sleep at night. So it’s really catastrophic.”
“No food is entering Gaza,” he added, saying that people are dying from hunger.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this month that Israel plans to seize all of Gaza and hold it indefinitely.
Tom Fletcher, head of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs, warned the Security Council this week it must “act now” to “prevent genocide” – a claim Israel vehemently denies.
Russia and Ukraine failed to agree to a ceasefire in their first direct talks since 2022 – as European leaders called Moscow’s approach “unacceptable” after the discussions lasted less than two hours and Vladimir Putin stayed away.
The meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, was set up at short notice on President Putin‘s behest, but he declined a challenge from Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet him in person and instead sent relatively junior representatives.
A source in the Ukrainian team told Sky News that Russia had threatened “eternal war” during the talks.
They said the Russians were not ready to talk about technical details of a ceasefire and were waiting for superiors to approve them.
Latest updates on Istanbul talks
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan chairs a meeting between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Istanbul. Pic: Reuters
Both countries said they had agreed to trade 1,000 prisoners of war each in what would be the biggest such exchange yet of the conflict.
But Kyiv wants the West to impose tighter sanctions unless Moscow accepts a proposal from Donald Trump for a 30-day ceasefire.
President Zelenskyy said after the meeting that he had spoken to Mr Trump by phone – alongside Sir Keir Starmer and the leaders of France, Germany and Poland – who all met in Albania on Friday.
In a post on X, he said Ukraine was “ready to take the fastest possible steps to bring real peace” and that “tough sanctions must follow” if Russia continues to resist a month-long truce.
The Ukrainian delegation. Pic: Reuters
The Russian delegation. Pic: Reuters
Frustration over Russia‘s perceived stalling in holding serious negotiations was also clear from the European leaders gathered in Tirana.
“The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time,” said Sir Keir.
“So as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskyy and that call with President Trump we are now closely aligning our responses and will continue to do so.”
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The talks were held in Dolmabache Palace in Istanbul. Pic: AP
The UK prime minister said the no-show by Russia’s leader was “more evidence that Putin is not serious about peace” and has “been dragging his heels”.
NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte, who was also in Albania, said President Putin had made a “big mistake” by sending low-level delegates to Istanbul.
A list of representatives ahead of the meeting listed presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich and deputy defence chief Alexander Fomin.
Ukraine’s delegation was led by defence minister Rustem Umerov.
President Zelenskyy had called the Russian team “a theatre prop” ahead of the summit in the Dolmabahce Palace.
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However, Turkey’s foreign minister heralded it as “an important day for world peace” and said Russia and Ukraine had agreed to swap 1,000 POWs each as a “confidence-building measure”.
Hakan Fidan shared a picture of the delegations and said they had “agreed to share with the other side in writing the conditions that would make it possible to reach a ceasefire”.
Russia’s Vladimir Medinsky said his team had “taken note” of the Ukrainian request for direct talks between Mr Putin and Mr Zelenskyy.
“We have agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire and spell it out in detail,” said Mr Medinsky.
Hopes ahead of the meeting were low after Mr Trump and his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, played down the prospect of meaningful progress.
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Trump on meeting Putin: ‘As soon as we can set it up’
The US president told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday “nothing’s going to happen until Putin and I get together”, while Mr Rubio said a “breakthrough” was unlikely until the US and Russian presidents meet.
No date for such a meeting has been proposed, but Mr Trump has said it will happen “as soon as we can set it up”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that top-level talks were “certainly needed” but arranging it would take time.
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Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov was a notable absentee, despite attending Ukraine-focused talks with the US in Saudi Arabia in February.
Russia has so far failed to agree to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire – proposed by European leaders who have threatened Moscow with “massive” sanctions if it doesn’t sign up. The US also supports the plan.
The Kremlin has ambitions to keep swathes of Ukrainian land as part of any long-term truce, an idea that Kyiv firmly rejects.
Russia also wants an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a promise it will stay neutral.
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