VP Sara warns dad: ‘You could suffer Ninoy Aquino’s fate if you return’

Vice President Sara Duterte (L) addresses the people gathering outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, on March 14, 2025. FILE PHOTO/Agence France-Presse

MANILA, Philippines — Vice President Sara Duterte warned her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, that he could suffer the same fate as the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. if he returns to the Philippines.

She made this remark over the weekend after the former president expressed his intention to return and serve as Davao City mayor.

Duterte, who is currently detained in The Hague on charges of crimes against humanity, has officially filed his certificate of candidacy for the Davao City mayoral race.

READ: Duterte confident has ‘no case’ to answer at ICC – VP Sara

“Your desire to go home, that would be the end of your life. You will become Ninoy Aquino Jr.,” she said in a speech in a program at the Netherlands in a video published by SMNI on Monday.

“He told me, ‘If that is my fate, so be it, as long as I’m back in the Philippines,’” she added.

Former Senator Ninoy Aquino was assassinated at the airport that now bears his name on August 21, 1983.

READ: VP Sara fires back, tags Marcoses in Ninoy assassination

His murder led to a public outcry which eventually toppled the dictatorship of the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. through the People Power Revolution.

The remarks of VP Duterte did not sit well with the family of Aquino Jr.

“If we study history, we will see that what happened to Ninoy is different from what former President Duterte is going through now,” the family said in a statement on Monday.

This is not the first time the vice president has invoked the Edsa Revolution against the Marcos administration.

In November last year, she claimed that the Marcoses were behind Aquino’s assassination.