Philippines' first lady Liza Marcos breaks 2-year silence on ties with vice-president Sara Duterte: 'I felt hurt'
A video of Philippine first lady Marie Louise "Liza" Araneta Marcos saying her relationship with Vice-President Sara Duterte has soured went viral on Thursday, likely pushing tensions between the president and his vice-president to a head, analysts said.
The comments are the latest escalation in the war of words between the Marcos and Duterte clans, two of the most powerful political families in the Philippines, following numerous insults traded between the vice-president's father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, and President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr.
In a video of an interview with local broadcast journalist Anthony Taberna, the first lady said she was "always kind to [the vice-president]" but the vice-president was "now a bad shot with me".
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The first lady said the vice-president had hurt her emotionally, saying "I felt hurt".
"[The vice-president] went to a rally where [Marcos Jnr] was mocked as 'bangag' (Tagalog for a drug-addled person)," she said, referring to the March 12 rally organised by supporters of the former president, where the vice-president "laughed".
The 28-second video clip posted by Taberna is part of an extended interview in which the first lady broke two years of silence on her relationship with the vice-president since her husband took office.
The entire interview has yet to be released but supporters of the president expect more pushback by the first lady against her political enemies.
It comes after the president on Monday said that while his relationship with his vice-president was "complicated" and "hasn't really changed".
The first lady's latest comments may have brought tensions between the two families, and between the president and the vice-president, to a head, former congressman Barry Gutierrez said.
Because of the "tone" of the first lady's remarks, the removal of the vice-president from the cabinet "may not be far off", he said.
The vice-president and Marcos Jnr has yet to respond to the first lady's comments.
Manolo Quezon, a historian and grandson of former president Manuel Quezon, told This Week in Asia on Thursday that the Marcos Jnr couple worked in tandem.
"She is the bad cop, he is the good cop. He has to stay true to his campaign public persona as unifier," said Quezon, who was an undersecretary of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office under president Benigno Aquino III and a presidential assistant for historical affairs under president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
"If accounts are to be believed, she is the one running the back end of things," Quezon said, highlighting that the first lady was in charge of the president's 2022 political campaign that she ran "aggressively and with discipline and smarts".
With Marcos Jnr being "conflict averse and passive-aggressive", "others have to do the fighting for him", said Rolando Llamas, a political analyst and chairman of Galahad Consulting Agency.
"Without a real ruling party or coalition, without clear political strategists and advisers, and with his cabinet very silent and not defending him, [the first lady] may be the one filling that vacuum in more ways than one," he said.
The president may be holding back because the Dutertes still have high approval ratings that are "almost as high as his", Llamas said.
"[The president] knows that foreign policy is his biggest strength and the Filipino people overwhelmingly support him in that."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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