'Drag me to hell': Sara Duterte gets personal in fiery tell-all vs Marcos

MANILA, Philippines — Accused of "deceiving" her former ally, Vice President Sara Duterte hurled her most scathing remarks against President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Friday, October 18, at a press conference packed with comments on why she believes he has put the Philippines "on the road to hell."

During the two-hour talk with the media, Duterte blamed Marcos for provoking her into talking about their fallout in detail when he said in an interview last week that was "deceived" into believing he was still "friends" with her.

The vice president spent a large chunk of the press conference describing her former running-mate as an incompetent president, who she had sensed was unfit for the position from the start of their 2022 campaign due to his lack of a clear platform.

"It's not my fault that we are in this road to hell. It's not my fault that he does not have the competence to lead. If you know you have shortcomings, you’d speed up your work to catch up,” Duterte said in mixed Filipino and English, adding that the president does not have a clear platform to address inflation and food security. 

When they teamed up to run as a tandem in the 2022 polls, Duterte said she could not recall hearing Marcos discuss his specific plans once elected to the top post, including solutions to the Philippines' food security and soaring inflation. 

"I don’t remember him mentioning any platform detailing what he would do for this country. He didn’t specify what he would do about food security, inflation... We knew at that time that those issues were coming; they had already been forecasted," she said, adding: "I don’t ever recall him discussing what he would do to address those problems.”

Duterte described how she would tune out and ignore his speeches during the campaign trail.

“I’m sorry, but when I was sitting there at that time, I wasn’t listening to him. All I heard was, 'Sama sama tayong babangon muli (together we will rise),'" Duterte said.

"And when you say, 'Sama sama tayong babangon muli,’ you want to know how the Philippines can be the best it can be... But apparently, many have been left behind now," she said.

Duterte gave Marcos a score of one when asked to rate his