MANILA – Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday described a public threat by the vice president to have him killed by an assassin as part of a criminal conspiracy and vowed to fight him, part of a looming showdown between the nation’s two highest leaders.

Vice President Sara Duterte said in an online press conference on Saturday that she had hired an assassin to kill the president, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives if she herself was killed, in a threat which, according to her, was not a joke.

The national police and military immediately increased security for the president, and the Justice Department announced it would summon the vice president for an investigation. The National Security Council has stated that it considers this threat a national security issue.

The vice president, a lawyer, then tried to walk back her comments, saying it was not a real threat but an expression of concern for her own safety in the face of an unspecified threat.

“Why should I kill him if not to take revenge from the grave?” I have no reason to kill him. What is the benefit for me? Duterte told reporters.

“This criminal conspiracy should not be allowed to happen,” Marcos said in a televised statement, without mentioning Duterte by name. “I’ll fight him.”

“As a democratic country, we must respect the rule of law,” Marcos said.

Marcos ran with Duterte as his vice presidential running mate in the May 2022 elections and both won. crushing victories on a campaign call for national unity. In the Philippines, the two positions are elected separately.

However, the two leaders and their camps soon fell out bitterly over major differences, particularly regarding their approaches to China’s aggressive territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea. Duterte resigned from the Marcos cabinet in June as education secretary and head of a counterinsurgency agency.

On Monday, Justice Undersecretary Jesse Andres said in a news conference that Duterte would be subpoenaed to face investigation.

Andres called the vice president the “confessed mastermind” of a “premeditated plot to assassinate the president.” All government resources and law enforcement will be mobilized to identify the alleged killer and determine criminal responsibilities, he said.

“We must maintain order in a civilized society by respecting the rule of law and we will apply the full force and might of the law in this regard,” Andres said.

Under Philippine law, such public comments can constitute the offense of threatening harm to a person or their family and are punishable by imprisonment and a fine.

The Philippine Constitution states that if a president dies, suffers permanent disability, is removed from office or resigns, the vice president takes over and serves the remainder of his term.

Duterte said she was prepared to face investigators or an impeachment complaint in Congress, but added she would also demand answers to her allegations against Marcos and his allies.

“I won’t let what they did to me slide either,” she told reporters.

The vice president is the daughter of Marcos’ predecessor, Rodrigo Dutertewhose police crackdown on drugs when he was mayor of the city and then president caused the deaths of thousands of suspects, most of them minors, in murders that the International Criminal Court was investigating as a possible crime against ‘humanity.

Like his equally outspoken father, the vice president has become a vocal critic of Marcos, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the president’s cousin, accusing them of corruption, incompetence and political persecution of the Duterte family and their supporters.

Last month, the vice president told reporters that her relationship with Marcos had “become so toxic” that she had considered “cutting off his head.”

Romualdez told the House of Representatives that the vice president was trying to distract from her alleged misuse of public funds, which Congress is investigating. Several lawmakers reaffirmed their confidence in the House Speaker and condemned Duterte’s remarks.

His latest tirade was sparked by the decision of House members allied with Romualdez and Marcos to arrest Duterte’s chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, on charges of obstructing a congressional investigation into possible misuse of Duterte’s budget as vice president and secretary of education. Lopez was held in a hospital after becoming traumatized by lawmakers’ plan to temporarily detain her in prison.

In a pre-dawn online press conference on Saturday, an angry Duterte accused Marcos of incompetence as president and a liar, as did his wife and the House Speaker, in expletive-laden remarks .

When concerns about her safety were raised, Duterte, 46, suggested there was an unspecified plot to kill her. “Don’t worry about my safety, because I spoke with someone. I said “if I am killed, you will kill BBM, Liza Araneta and Martin Romualdez”. No joke, no joke,’” the vice president said, without further details and without using the initials that many use to refer to the president.

“I gave my order: ‘If I die, don’t stop until you kill them.’ And he said ‘yes,’” the vice president said.