Vice President Sara Duterte said on Wednesday, July 15, that she had informed her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, about the renewed efforts to link him to the case of the missing sabungeros (cockfighting enthusiasts), calling the accusation “preposterous.”

“I updated him about the missing sabungeros case. And then I told him that there is an attempt to link him to it. So, he said that it's preposterous. Yes. It's preposterous,” the Vice President told reporters during an ambush interview in The Hague, Netherlands.

She added, “He said the attempt to link him to the missing sabungeros and the bones or the bodies in Taal Lake is preposterous.”

Duterte said she believes that these allegations are part of a broader "demolition job" targeting their family.

“Well, it is expected because we saw it early on with their attacks on my office. That started in September 2023,” she said.

“But even before that, during the campaign, there were already people who told us that there were bad things being said inside their group. I won’t name the personalities involved, but we heard it — it was reported to us,” she added.

Despite this, Duterte said she did not initially pay much attention to it, thinking her position did not hold enough power to warrant such attacks.

“I thought to myself, who am I really? I’m just the Vice President. They’re the ones in the presidency. So technically, they’re the decision-makers. The Vice President is just a spare tire, right?” she said.

“So I didn’t expect it would go this far, to the point that even the work I do is being affected. They are trying to clip the wings of the Office of the Vice President, preventing us from helping our countrymen,” Duterte continued.

She lamented what she sees as the country's decline, expressing a sense of hopelessness.

“I also didn’t expect our country would reach this point — where nothing seems to be happening. As I said before, it seems like we’re on a road to perdition, and right now, I think it’s hopeless. I don’t see any road leading back to unity and the continuity of President Duterte’s legacy,” she said.