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Philippine VP Sara Duterte charged over Marcos assassination threat

She was hit with a ‘grave threats’ charge in an ongoing Senate impeachment trial over an alleged assassination plot against the president

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Sara Duterte-Carpio, Philippine vice-president and daughter of former leader Rodrigo Duterte, speaks during a protest outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague in July. Photo: AP
Agence France-Presse
Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio was hit with a criminal charge on Tuesday over an alleged death threat against the country’s president, a key part of the case against her at her ongoing Senate impeachment trial.

The charge of “grave threats” was filed on Tuesday afternoon in a Quezon City courtroom, Department of Justice (DOJ) spokesman Polo Martinez said.

It stems from a National Bureau of Investigation criminal complaint filed in February 2025, months after a late-night news briefing in which Duterte-Carpio claimed to have hired an assassin to kill President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr, his wife and a former congressman cousin should he have her cut down first.
A worker carries boxes labelled “Confidential Funds” containing documents presented during the impeachment trial of Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio in Metro Manila, the Philippines, on August 3. Photo: AP
A worker carries boxes labelled “Confidential Funds” containing documents presented during the impeachment trial of Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio in Metro Manila, the Philippines, on August 3. Photo: AP

Lawyers for Duterte-Carpio on Tuesday argued the case could not be pursued while she was being impeached.

“As a sitting impeachable officer, the Vice-President may not be prosecuted for an alleged offence that is also the subject of an impeachment case,” defence lawyer Paul Lawrence Lim said in a statement.

Asked if the justice department believed the case could be pursued simultaneously alongside the impeachment trial, Martinez said: “That’s correct”, adding it was now in the court’s jurisdiction.

“That’s for the prosecutors in that ongoing trial to present,” he said, adding they had met a “high threshold” before moving forward with the case.

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