Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte posts bail after arrest

Philippines Vice President Sara Duterte has posted bail after an arrest warrant was issued for her on charges of publicly threatening to arrange the assassination of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and two others. According to the Associated Press, Duterte posted 360,000 pesos ($5,740) bail and showed a court order lifting the arrest warrant at the Quezon City Regional Trial Court in Metro Manila.

Duterte claimed she did not feel safe due to alleged police harassment and had her lawyers accompany her as she left the courthouse. She had previously denied the allegations, stating that her comments had been misconstrued. The charges stem from a late-night news briefing where Duterte claimed to have hired a hitman to kill President Marcos, his wife, and a congressman cousin if she were to be "cut down first".

The alleged assassination threat is also part of her ongoing Senate impeachment trial, where a guilty verdict would result in her removal from office and a permanent ban from politics. Duterte had voluntarily appeared before the court that issued the warrant, so there was no need for her to be arrested, according to her lawyer Lawrence Lim.

Brief written by urgent.news from NPR, Associated Press, Ghana Business News, Channel News Asia, Free Malaysia Today — 5 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.