Political turmoil has escalated after Vice President Sara Duterte claimed to have arranged for President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s assassination if she is slain.

Vice President Sara Duterte said she had talked to a hitman to kill her boss if she herself were to be killed, saying she was making "no joke."

Tensions between the two most powerful political clans in the Philippines are at boiling point, with Vice President Sara Duterte telling President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. she would have him assassinated if someone did the same to her.

The vice-president of the Philippines has hired a hitman to kill the country’s president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr, his wife and the speaker of the house, in the event she is assassinated.

In a dramatic sign of a widening rift between the two most powerful political families in the Southeast Asian nation, Duterte told an early morning press conference that she had spoken to an assassin and instructed him to kill Marcos, his wife and the speaker of the Philippine House if she were to be killed.

Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday if she is killed, she has contracted an assassin to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his wife and House of Representatives speaker.

Vice President Sara Duterte said Saturday that she has contracted an assassin to kill the president, his wife and the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has described a public threat by the vice president to have him killed by an assassin as a criminal plot and vowed to fight it, in a looming showdown between

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos on Monday vowed to fight back against what he called reckless and troubling threats against him, speaking out after his estranged vice president said he would be assassinated if she herself were killed.