Sara slammed over Marcos tirades

A CONGRESSMAN on Tuesday blasted Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio for her tirades against the Marcos family last week, saying “she crossed the line” for threatening to behead President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. and exhume the body of his father to be thrown in the South China Sea.

“I cannot stay silent while she threatens to exhume a former president and behead an incumbent one,” presidential son and Ilocos Norte Rep. Ferdinand Alexander “Sandro” A. Marcos III said in a statement published on his Facebook page.

“Her bizarre temper tantrum has been condemned by a nation horrified by such displays of insensitivity towards the dead and cruelty to the living,” he added, referring to Ms. Carpio.

Ms. Carpio issued the statement against the Marcoses in a two-hour, freewheeling press conference last week, saying their relationship has become “toxic.”

Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin C. Remulla on Monday said his department is looking into the possibility of filing charges against Ms. Carpio for her statements regarding the remains of late former President Ferdinand E. Marcos, Sr. buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, citing the need to look into the “moral principles” and “legal aspects” she could have violated.

“Let’s pray for the Philippines because we have a Secretary of Justice who doesn’t understand the law,” Ms. Carpio told reporters on the sidelines of the 50th Philippine Business Conference and Expo at Pasay City on Tuesday. “There is a big difference between talking about the desecration of a body and actually desecrating a body.”

Responding to Ms. Carpio’s statement, Mr. Remulla on Tuesday told reporters that the Department of Justice (DoJ) is “studying the possibility of filing cases based on criminal acts.”

“I think we all know the score of what kind of vice-president we have, how seemingly unstable her mind can be. This country does not deserve a future with the kind of person like this,” he added.

In a separate statement, Kabataan Party-list said lawmakers should not frame Ms. Carpio’s statements as a mental health issue, rather to seek accountability.

“Sara’s rants are not a mental health issue; these are an accountability issue. She doesn’t need a day at the doctor’s clinic but a day in court or Congress hearings,” Renee Louise M. Co, one of Kabataan Party-list’s nominees in the midterm elections next year, said in the statement.

Ms. Carpio, in the same media briefing last week, also accused the president of incompetence and a lack of leadership, showing a deepening rift between the two political families ahead of the 2025 midterm elections, seen as a litmus test for the Marcos administration.

“The sitting leader does not know how to become president,” Ms. Carpio said in Filipino.

Ms. Carpio also said Filipino voters should urge their congressional candidates to “undergo drug testing,” she told reporters on the sidelines of the Tuesday event. — Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio