Conviction could permanently bar Sara Duterte from 2028 presidential bid
Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte posted bail at Quezon City Regional Trial Court on Saturday, emerging in a black outfit as supporters chanted her name and wept outside the courthouse. The court had issued an arrest warrant for her the previous day.
Sara Duterte consoled her supporters and hugged a woman who was sobbing as the crowd chanted “Duterte! Duterte!” She showed reporters a court order lifting the arrest warrant the court issued Friday and said her lawyers instructed her to keep a copy on hand. She asked journalists to surround her on the way to her car, telling them she did not feel safe.
“If possible please go with me, because I do not feel safe with all these police personnel who are harassing those at my home, harassing me since 2023,” Sara Duterte said. “What does this administration really want to do with me?”
Her attorney Paul Lawrence Lim said court staff took Sara Duterte’s fingerprints and that she posted 360,000 pesos bail ($5,740) for three counts of grave threats. Lim said Sara Duterte would fight the charges and “has no intention of evading the law and will continue to exercise all her legal remedies.”
The charges stem from alleged threats Sara Duterte, 48, made during a 2024 online news conference. According to the account of the event, she said she would have Marcos, his wife and then-House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez killed by an assassin if she herself were killed as their political disputes escalated. During the event, Sara Duterte said she was not joking.
Sara Duterte has denied the allegations. She later said she was expressing concern for her own safety rather than threatening Marcos. The remarks nevertheless set off a criminal investigation and national-security concerns.
The case is seen as part of the political confrontation between Sara Duterte and Marcos. A conviction on the grave-threat counts could permanently disqualify her from holding public office and prohibit her from seeking the presidency in 2028, when Marcos’s six-year term ends.
A separate impeachment proceeding has moved in parallel. The House of Representatives, dominated by Marcos allies, voted overwhelmingly in May to impeach Sara Duterte over allegations of unexplained wealth, misuse of confidential state funds and the online-news-conference threats. The Philippine Senate, acting as an impeachment court, opened her televised trial in July.
Marcos and Sara Duterte were running mates in the 2022 elections in an alliance that combined two of the country’s most formidable political dynasties. Marcos is the son of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., who held the office from the 1960s to the 1980s, including a period of repression and martial law. Sara Duterte is the daughter of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the predecessor to the current Marcos administration.
Sara Duterte has previously criticized the Marcos administration for surrendering her father to a foreign court. Rodrigo Duterte was arrested in 2025 on orders of the International Criminal Court and is detained in The Hague, where he is scheduled to face trial beginning in late November over alleged crimes against humanity connected to his anti-drug campaign that left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead, according to the ICC. He has denied authorizing extrajudicial killings but repeatedly threatened suspects with death while in office.
Marcos and Sara Duterte have also taken contrasting positions on foreign policy. Marcos has expanded defense engagements with the United States, a treaty ally of the Philippines, as his administration has stood up to China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the disputed South China Sea. Sara Duterte has drawn criticism for not condemning water-canon incidents and other confrontations between Chinese and Filipino forces and fishermen in the disputed waters.