Vice President Sara Duterte released a three-page statement on September 7, 2026, claiming she learned as early as 2024 of alleged plans by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against her, and accusing the administration of endangering her mother and children.
In the statement, titled “Pahayag” and issued by the Office of the Vice President, Duterte said the alleged plans included securing an International Criminal Court warrant against her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, and unspecified “attacks” against her. Because her security is tied to the Armed Forces of the Philippines under the constitutional line of succession, she said, she raised several “important requests” with former AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Romeo Brawner — chiefly that her mother and children be protected and not be “dragged in or frightened” by anything done to her.
The statement reproduced what Duterte presented as a February 7, 2024 message exchange with Brawner, in which the sender identifies himself as “Omet Brawner” and offers assurances that “the President will not allow anything to happen” to her or to her father. The purported messages list three commitments: to inform her of any arrest order, to ensure any action be taken away from her residence, and to remain reachable for questions. Duterte’s reply in the exchange stresses that no action be taken where her children and mother are present.
Duterte framed the alleged surveillance of her family’s whereabouts as a criminal matter. “The children should not be used, frightened, or dragged into intimidation. This is child abuse,” she said, adding that a government that fails to protect the young “shows a lack of concern for the future of our nation.” She closed the statement with the word “Shukran.”
The statement follows a turbulent week. A Quezon City Regional Trial Court issued an arrest warrant against Duterte on September 4, 2026, over three counts of grave threats, and she posted P360,000 bail — P120,000 for each count — the following day, after which the court lifted the warrant. The charges stem from a November 2024 online press briefing in which she said she had arranged for someone to kill Marcos, First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos, and then-House Speaker Martin Romualdez if she herself were killed; she has since said the remarks were misconstrued.
The new statement expands on accusations Duterte made after posting bail. Philstar reported that she told the court she did not trust the police and had documented threats against her since 2023. Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla acknowledged, as GMA News reported, that authorities knew her whereabouts the night before the warrant was issued but chose not to force the arrest — remarks Duterte cast as an admission of long-running surveillance against her. The national police chief, Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr., countered that she had not formally reported any threat to her life or her family’s safety to the PNP.
The grave threats case runs parallel to Duterte’s impeachment trial in the Senate, which opened in July 2026. A conviction would remove her from office and bar her from politics, threatening her stated 2028 presidential ambitions. Her father, Rodrigo Duterte, is in the custody of the International Criminal Court at The Hague after his March 2025 arrest over alleged crimes against humanity linked to his drug war.
