Vice President Sara Duterte visiting Ateneo de Zamboanga University on Friday, September 4, the same day the warrant for her arrest was released. Official handout.
Manuel Mogato | September 6, 2026
MANILA — Vice President Sara Duterte appeared on a Saturday before a local court to post a bail bond for her temporary liberty after she was ordered arrested for threatening the president, his wife, and cousin last November 2024.
Accompanied by her battery of lawyers, she paid 360,000 pesos for three counts of grave threats filed by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) before the Quezon City regional trial court which acquired jurisdiction over the case.
Outside the court, some of Duterte’s followers gathered to show support. It took time for the vice president to enter the courtroom because she expressed fears for her safety.
“I do not feel safe,” Duterte said, despite dozens of security detail around her. “I don’t trust the court, I don’t trusr the police.”
She said she felt she “would be killed.”
The defiant vice president did not allow herself to be photographed in detention shirt, submitting her own photo to the court.
Congressman Terry Ridon immediately criticized the vice president’s “special treatment.”
Ridon, who was among prosecutors in the impeachment case of the vice president before the Senate said the Philippine National Police has waived its ordinary booking procedures in the case by not taking Duterte’s mugshot.
“It is clearly a case of special treatment that does not speak well of the rule of law and the equality of persons before the law,” Ridon said, advising Duterte to “drop the drama and be accountable for your actions.”
The case stemmed from a November 2024 video showing an angry Duterte threatening to assassinate President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, his wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, and his cousin, former Speaker Martin Romualdez. (Also read: NBI has 20 persons that can identity Vice President “killer”)
Duterte got mad after her chief of staff was ordered transferred to a women’s correctional facility from the a detention room at the House of Representatives after she was cited in contempt during a congressional hearing..
Her threats were also among the articles of impeachment before the Senate. Her defense team at the Senate did not dispute the video conference was authentic but qualified the threats were just outburst due to frustration and she did not mean it.
If convicted by the Senate, she will be removed from her position and will be barred from seeking any public office. Early this year, she had announced her intention to seek the presidency in 2028.
