Philippine police file criminal complaints against VP Sara Duterte, her security aides

Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte gestures as she attends a hearing at the House of Representative in Quezon City, Philippines on Monday Nov. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)

MANILA: Philippine police officials on Wednesday filed criminal complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte and her security staff for allegedly assaulting and disobeying orders from authorities in a recent altercation in Congress. The criminal complaints filed by the Quezon City police were separate from any legal action may arise after she publicly threatened to have President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife and the House of Representatives speaker assassinated if she were killed herself in an unspecified plot. She has not provided details of that plot.
The Marcos administration's legal offensive against Duterte, her father and their allies is a critical juncture in a conflict that has seethed in the last two years between the two most powerful families in the Philippines.
The Department of Justice said it was also looking into potentially seditious remarks by Marcos's successor and the vice president's father, Rodrigo Duterte, who said in a news conference that the civilian government would only listen if the military would voice concerns about corruption and irregularities under the Marcos administration.
"There is a fractured governance … It is only the military who can correct it," the former president told a news conference Monday night. He said he was not agitating the military to rise against Marcos but only reaffirming the real situation in the Philippines.

Still, justice officials said an investigation into the former president's remarks would proceed.
The criminal complaints for assaulting, disobeying and grave coercion against police authorities were filed against the vice president and her security and other aides before state prosecutors, a police statement said. Such crimes are punishable by a jail term and a fine.
The complaints were set off by a chaotic squabble over the weekend in the House of Representatives where the vice president's chief of staff, Zuleika Lopez, has been temporarily detained.

Lopez has been accused by legislators of obstructing and not cooperating