Assassination threats: a serious challenge to our democracy

Everyone I have talked to have said the same thing: Vice President Sara Duterte is dangerous and needs to be dealt with firmly.

They are referring to the Vice President’s midnight rant over the weekend where she admitted to ordering the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., First Lady Liza Marcos, and House Speaker Martin Romualdez. To emphasize that she was serious, she said that it was not a joke. Twice.

Threatening to kill the President is a serious offense. Previously, Vice President Duterte claimed she had imagined decapitating the President but dismissed it as mere wordplay.
This time, however, she clearly admitted to involvement in a plot to kill the President. There is no room for misinterpretation.

Her belated defense that her statement was taken out of its “logical context” does not hold water. Her contract to kill the President, the First Lady and the House Speaker is active. A deal has been sealed with an assassin, this she even admitted to. The assassin is at large.

The President and the First Lady made the right move in immediately and sternly addressing Vice President Duterte’s threat.

A direct challenge to the President’s authority cannot be tolerated. A plot to kill the head of state cannot be ignored. The fact that the Vice President stands to gain from the heinous plot requires swift and decisive action from the concerned agencies of government. The protection of the President and enforcement of the rule of law should always be paramount.

In the face of this and other controversies involving her and her office, Vice President Duterte remains defiant. In justifying her most recent statement, the Vice President sought to portray herself as the original target of a supposed assassination plot. This prompted her as she had claimed, to hire an assassin. “Revenge from the grave,” she describes it, as a way of excusing herself from criminal accountability.

But nobody is buying her excuses. This time, majority of our people believed she has crossed the line.

To them, Vice President Duterte is a danger to democracy and political stability. And she endangers economic recovery with controversial remarks that send wrong signals to investors. It has become clear that the Vice President has been unmasked by her own words and deeds as unfit to lead.

She calls the administration corrupt, thereby presenting herself as “not corrupt.” But the hearings at the House of Representatives have been uncovering corruption at the Office of the vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education during her term at a scale that is scandalous. And everything points to her direct knowledge and involvement in these anomalous acts.

Her own staff, withering under persistent and precise questioning from congressmen, have testified that only Vice President Duterte and a few trusted aides are involved in the disbursement of confidential funds.

In a recent testimony, it was admitted that millions in confidential funds were turned over to military aides upon the Vice President’s personal instruction, in violation of the guidelines governing the use and release of such funds. It cannot get any clearer than that.

In retaliation, she accused administration officials, notably Speaker Romualdez, of plotting the demolition job against her. Romualdez was singled out for allegedly also planning to assassinate her. The Speaker then reacted by vehemently denouncing such a ludicrous and libelous accusation.

Yet by her own admission she is the one who has been plotting to kill the President, the First Lady, and the House Speaker all along. It bolsters claims of bloodlust as a family trait.

For many, however, the controversial remarks are attempts to shift the focus away from the revelations of corruption. She is tossing blame and trying to hold ranking officials accountable for imagined shortcomings when she is the one who is allergic to any form of accountability.

Her imperious manner and sense of entitlement is clearly seen in how she treats confidential funds – taxpayers’ money – as private money for her to dispense as she pleases. She continues to claim that a law prohibits her from discussing “confidential funds’ and that she has been saying that over and over again to the House of Representatives. But this “law” was never mentioned in the joint circular of five government agencies led by the Commission on Audit (COA) that requires submission of quarterly reports on the spending of confidential and intelligence funds.

A few days ago, VP Duterte claimed that the 2022 presidency was already hers, alleging she already had unified support, but “gave it away” because she had to do some other things other than being President of the Republic of the Philippines. She also claimed it was the House lawmakers’ alleged maltreatment (of OVP personnel) that caused the present political chaos.

Well, mental health experts today would call Vice President Duterte’s behavior as a public officer, as a textbook narcissist personality. Narcissists believe that the world revolves around them. Among the signs of narcissism are the compulsive need to be admired and obeyed. They are arrogant and do not take kindly to criticism. Narcissists consider themselves exceptional and superior and possess an exceptional sense of entitlement.

Do all these traits sound familiar to you? And would you entrust the presidency to such a person?